Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Ever think about how white supremacy constructs a racialized discourse of physical strength and intelligence that places white people as the median? This is how they discuss this:
Black people and Native Americans are intellectually weaker than whites but stronger than them.
Jews and Asians are physically weaker than whites but intellectually stronger.
Which places white people right in the middle physically and intellectually. Adds an odd/interesting note to white supremacy’s claim of white supremacy. They’re claiming a supremacy of averageness and of balance between opposing forces.
If this is what we were supposed to take away from a character like Louis why would anyone love/like him? It begs the question what are Louis’ redeeming qualities? Why do these men continue to stay with him and obsess over him?
Original post
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this. Ultimately, I think this is all a response.
I still think Season 1 was fine. I think they knew the story they wanted to tell and approached it with open minds and excitement to adapt it. But then AMC gave them the green light to expand Louis’ arc across two seasons. Surprising but okay! And so, at least in my opinion, they did create S1 out of genuine creativity and love for the material.
But then it released and seeing how popular Loustat was, seeing people actually really like, some even love Jacob’s Louis, it made them approach S2 differently. Nobody behind the scenes was expecting for Loucob to be as loved as he is, whether people like him for himself or like him as an extension of Loustat. Even Jacob seemed to be surprised, having initially viewed his arc as a stepping stone before they’d dive into Lestat later. His shock & confusion in interviews after S2 but before they started shooting S3 was clear. He was surprised to still be brought on for in-depth interviews at all.
I wouldn’t call it lightning in a bottle. That would mean intent. It’s more like they were drinking beers in the backyard just shooting the shit before lightning freaked everybody out by zapping past the lid. While of course they didn’t plan to tell a lackluster story, I think the richness of Louis’ character was a complete accident. I think they all thought it could be perceived as good, not as fucking great.
And this is why Season 2 started us down the path of being controversial among the fanbase. And by “controversial” I genuinely mean “debated”, because people have very different opinions of it. The S2 reunion scene is heavily debated (primarily in Louis spaces) with half saying they hated it and the other half enjoying it. You have half the fanbase happy with Lestat’s apology during the trial, and half saying Santiago was right and that Lestat was too hard on himself.
Season 1 was clearer on how things were to be interpreted. While there’s definitely argument for how fans/crowds/mobs take ideas and run with them regardless of intent, nothing in Season 1 garnered as many different interpretations as the content in Season 2. I think this is because this is when the team behind the show started, seemingly, disagreeing with each other.
This is how you get “wait what was Louis’ apology to Lestat in the finale about? Was that Louis coming to terms with himself, or was that the show engaging in victim blaming?” And everyone has different POVs on it. It’s clear now, that the ambiguity behind the scene, behind quite a few scenes in S2, is because the writers themselves couldn’t agree on what they wanted them to mean.
But with all the people they’ve let go for Season 3, and the new ones they hired on, it’s obvious which side remained on-staff and the kinds of likeminded people they got to take the others’ place.
So now, in Season 3, there is no debate. There is no “hm I can see this interpretation but I can also see this interpretation….” There’s no ambiguity. This side of the team, the side that viewed Louis’ apology in S2 as Louis apologizing for ‘abusing’ Lestat, that seemed to view Louis’ charred, crumbling body apologizing to Armand as deserved punishment instead of horrific abuse, are the ones that have stayed and taken over the show.
And we KNOW debates started happening in the Season 2 writer’s room given the recent interview where Rolin briefly mentioned it, such as whether Louis asked Armand to erase his memories or if he never did. Certain things in Season 2 are controversial among fans, because the writers themselves started disagreeing on characterizations and important story beats.
So with this portion of the team let go vs the ones that were called back + those newly hired to replace the former, this is how we got Season 3. A season that is not as ambiguous as Season 2 where the writers were fist fighting when they put pen to paper. We are back to the single vision of Season 1.
Except this vision wasn’t born from heartfelt creativity and love for the material. It’s out of agreed upon resentment and shared biases. You even have the production designers of all crew members throwing in “I always liked Lestat more” unprompted when their job has NOTHING to do with character preference. Season 3 is the way it is, because these are the people who originally wanted Louis’ arc to only be compiled into a single season, and were irritated when fans kept wanting more. Whether they wanted more of Loucob or simply wanted more of Loustat as a duo.
And Rolin’s “we wrote from the gut” or “the id” and all of his sayings that they wrote instinctively lays it out that this whole mess is emotional retaliation. The writing behind Season 3 is a temper tantrum.
Not just as retaliation to Louis, but to everyone. Assad’s Armand shot through the ROOF and instantly became one of the most popular characters in S2. I’d even argue is Thee second most popular after Lestat (I’d say Daniel is the second most popular among casual viewers whereas among non-casual viewers, it’s Armand.) With DM shooting to the stars as the most popular ship among non-casual viewers. (And DM does beat out Loustat in terms of popularity when looking at the dedicated fanbase.)
But once again, this seems to have pissed That Side™️ of the creative team off after Season 2’s release. With none of them expecting Assad’s Armand to be as beloved or for DM to be as highly desired as they are. And you can see this frustration in all of Armand & DM’s “development” in Season 3.
Why Armand had less than 15 minutes total of screentime across episodes 1-6 before reducing into a maniacal villain in 3x07. Why DM’s eagerly anticipated relationship happened completely off screen, and both characters butchered so it would be intentionally unsatisfying once revealed. (And the excuse that they’re a minor / secondary relationship so they were never going to be as focused on doesn’t make sense when looking at Claudeleine. Who was still emotionally moving and well paced even in the midst of the Loumand-Dreamstat-Loustat triangle.)
The “meta” that they kept talking about in pre-S3 interviews isn’t that the writers just kept the fanbase in mind while making it, it’s that the entirety of Season 3 is a response to the fans themselves. It’s less about the actual characters that were written in Seasons 1 & 2, and comes off more as one long Twitter thread titled “My IWTV Hot Takes”
Because you also can’t say any of this was for Lestat. It’s very reminiscent to Season 2, when Lestat point blank says “I hurt Louis because I wanted to hurt him” and a portion of the fanbase shoved a pacifier in his mouth to shut him up and for years afterwards kept saying “No he didn’t mean it.” Even Samstat was reduced from a character into a figurehead.
Loucob became a punching bag, Claudlainey and Assad’s Armand were weaponized against Loucob while simultaneously reduced to punching bags too, and the writers put Samstat on the same idealized pedestal that the characters Magnus, Marius, and Gabriella are supposed to be condemned for, treating him as a concept rather than a person.
Sorry, my response turned into something else lol. But “Why would the writers write Louis this way? Why would anyone like him?” My personal opinion after really trying to understand what on earth has happened, is that no, they likely were not writing like this since S1. The season just doesn’t make sense from that POV. Everything we’re seeing right now is reactionary.
Season 1 was a story created out of actual interest, Season 2 was when the boat started to rock, and Season 3 isn’t a season at all. It’s a cokerant thread on Twitter. It’s a callout post on Tumblr. A 72-part TikTok story. It’s little more than the writers’ tantrum because fans weren’t playing with their dolls the way they wanted us to.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I made this yesterday before the frankly horrific spoiler leaks came out and I am resolved to triple down on my love for LDPDL. He's the story he's the takeaway he IS the moment and I refuse to let them take that away!!! hold the line Louis girlies!!!
Life outside seems easier than the 'prison life' we endure in Gaza. I try to imagine other places where life is difficult, but I realize that even the harshest environments are open; at least there is a way out. Gaza is a closed prison. A rocket could kill you at any moment, food and water are rationed, and the heaviest burden is being besieged by memories, destruction, and graves. It is a constant cycle of physical and psychological torment.
Prices in Gaza have started to rise unusually, and goods have almost disappeared from the markets. Types of vegetables are scarce and expensive, and meats have vanished from the markets too. I mean, what's happening is the beginning of a new famine; food is expensive and scarce in the markets!
Every help is appreciated guys you can DONATE HERE
Go to paypal.me/bushrabo and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.
I really don’t know what to say or how to explain my feelings but i appreciate you guys so much u are a family for me i love you so much ❤️
Unfortunately i have a bad news i didn’t want to tell you about it but i have to it has been 9 months since my mother took her salary it was 450$ monthly it was helping us to pay rent and bills plus there’s news about it will never be back so i appreciate any help for my family too 🙏
I love her so much my mother life was and still hard she struggled after my dad passed she was 38 years old I’m proud to be her son she gives us everything she can to see us successful in life, also she lost her oldest daughter reema was her best friend
Also i want to remind you her salary was cut off 9 months ago
I appreciate you so much for caring about me and my family ♥️
Remember when I pointed out that people generally are so desensitized towards abuse and unjust "provoked" violence towards Black people in media and reality that both the audience and the nonblack writers were going to start to handwave Louis' abuse away as unimportant, comedic, and not as severe as it was portrayed in the actual material? And everyone jumped me like I was crazy...
I want to add more analysis and critique from the perspective of how often people see the type of content that was shown in the first two seasons as normal social media slop. We see violence and sometimes domestic violence against black people so often on TikTok body cam footage and blacksploitation film that I genuinely believe that the way the show and its audience have panned out regarding racial themes is entirely affected by this larger phenomenon. Think: Precious memes, or footage of racist violence, footage of parents threatening to beat their black children, looping over and over as a TikTok audio trend. (All real examples btw, some happening dozens of times)
It's in everything from NCIS and SVU to TikTok skits and AI racebait. Every ten scrolls is either some irony-poisoned joke about Black suffering or a third-hand recount of real-life violence. Both digital blackface and black suffering are among the backbones of social media and fiction.
It's not hard to find a crime or courthouse show about Black suffering or domestic violence against black women. It's not difficult to find memes mocking victims of police brutality, and although one might not agree with those memes, the simple act of seeing floods of that sort of content poisons the viewers' reaction to it later down the line. First, it's a flinch, and next it's 'not surprising, oh well'.
Seeing a Black person being unjustly abused, punished, unsympathetically dropped by their own community, or literally lynched is not an uncommon event to witness. It's a common trope in media, and it's also a common event in reality. It's something that people rarely share prolonged sympathy and understanding for.
They click, scroll, move on, and take their black box off of their social media a day later. Supposed allies on Twitter will plainly go "I'm so tired of seeing stuff like this, I have to stop watching things like this UGH!" while joking about how disturbing and off-putting it is, with little emotion shown towards the actual victim presented.
The recent season of IWTV (TVL) has been really disturbing in how much it feels like the show, and its audience has succumbed to this disease as well. Louis' suffering is considered trivial, unimportant, or funny to some. His victimization is now considered "old news" by the writers and an "inconvenience" by its own audience. You see thousands of hours of media showing a Black person getting beaten by their partner or receiving an unfair punishment, and suddenly "Louis is being dramatic". Because YOU have seen it all before, because YOU are tired of seeing it, and YOU are no longer shocked by it. And it's nearly impossible to not connect it to how people have been treating both real and fictional Black victims in media for centuries.
This constant wave of our own suffering on the news, being played up for laughs in memes, or being scrolled past in shock, has created a deep lack of empathy and desensitization towards us. It's become a welcome pattern; it's become a boring fatigue.
Suddenly, after this season has started, people have begun making DV jokes about beating Louis or joke edits showing Lestat beating him... something that was earlier frowned upon. This has gone from one-offs that quickly get deleted to constant jokes about it. It's almost as if... the audience has become tired of pretending to care... (see where I'm going with this? It's a pattern.)
It's as if, despite intentionally writing an immensely deep, nuanced trauma onto this character, they decided after only two seasons of him that they were tired of it. And it's hard to say, but it feels as if they got tired of hearing about their own character's suffering and decided to move on. And it's hard to not believe that race plays a part in it when the show has gotten rid of all of its Black writers while this season consistently makes racialized jokes at his expense.
I love IWTV, but if this pattern continues, I'm genuinely gonna lose my marbles because this constant timer on how long Black people are allowed to be seen as sympathetic in media is devestating. And I really expect better from the show whose primary themes in the first season WERE RACE TO BEGIN WITH.
you know i really wish i just hated this season because lestat was talking like he was on a drag race mini challenge. i wish it wasn’t as serious as flippantly cruel anti-blackness and the fundamental mischaracterization of virtually every character and the complete erasure of any love that may have existed between characters outside of their endgame pairings. i wish it wasn’t because of the erasure of trans identity, the constant punching down, the pointless retconning, the absolution of an abuse, the very obvious vitriol for the first two seasons and everything that the series has cultivated as a result of the first two seasons. i wish it was just the proverbial dangling of keys in front of the audience. i wish it was as simple as i heard “serving cunt has its consequences” turned off my laptop and never watched another episode
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
it should have been lestat. I don't know what else there is to say except that it should have been lestat. it's HIS season after all NO? ARMAND SHOULD HAVE BEEN TORTURING LESTAT. it's literally book canon too like, lesmand drop translated into=lesmand torture. WHY WOULD IT BE LOUIS? it genuinely makes no sense
there's no textual basis for this decision. it happened to louis because the writers wanted to fulfill their violent racist fantasies. that's it.
btw i don't think louis did anything wrong by putting up claudia's dress in his house. reading her diaries to bruce, sharing them w/ daniel, i understand her feeling upset/violated about that. but seance claudia being pissed off about the dress felt so weird to me, especially considering how poignant that s2 final scene felt.
like, the two items given pride of place in that space were claudia's dress and the portrait of paul. it was a space memorialising the family louis loved and lost. in some ways it might've functioned as a reminder of the ways he felt he failed them – an attempt at atonement (god knows louis is harder on himself about claudia than lestat/armand ever were). my favourite thing about that s2 scene was that the space focused on the people who were family to him, rather than defining him by his romantic relationships. he was finally on his own after many painful years with lestat and armand, and it felt like he was reconnecting with the people in his life that perhaps mattered the most. i didn't see it as selfish or self-indulgent at all. i don't remember anyone reading the scene that way when the episode aired.
but now in s3, we have louis saying it was "meant to honour [claudia]" and seance claudia angrily saying "oh yeah, cause that's what i wanna be, car fuel for your self-pity"... i don't understand the purpose of this exchange beyond the writers just wanting to shit on EVERY action/choice louis makes!!! like they just want to once again hammer home this season's narrative of him being supposedly an awful selfish bastard. WELL I'M NOT FALLING FOR IT!!!!! of course louis is imperfect but ur not gonna convince me that he's bad or selfish for memorialising a loved one wtf lol!!!!
interview with the vampire was an accident. it wasn't supposed to be that good. the production approached and for a moment crossed into a queer television space that would have been extraordinary. but the unexplored terrified them. they needed to map the territory with structures they are familiar with, and so a Tumblr/subreddit gothic uptake of AR's the vampire lestat. it is exactly the radical reimagining AMC and Rolin Jones had in mind and executed, and they ensured the audience they needed would be there (s2's sudden post-show outsourcing to white YouTubers/participatory culture vultures) once the bag was secured. never forget the quickness with which the vampire lestat was announced and the excitement AMC, EPs, and Jones demonstrated once they were finally done with iwtv. never forget how the vampire lestat novel made talismanic appearances during early interviews and promotions. they don't even call it a gothic gay romance like Jones and AMC promoted interview with the vampire.
what the vampire lestat reveals is how blackness operates as a fetish, a a magical object that is at once grotesque in its capacity to withstand graphic body horror and mundane in that the mutilation and exhibition of black bodies has been, historically, a quotidian exercise. Blackness has value as a commodity fetish. For all the unnaturalness of this gothic horror show, what is most natural and not discussed in trades, by majoritarian fandom, the cast, the crew is the series' fascination with showing mutilated, disfigured, charred, burning, terrorized black flesh. What appears to be the true horror would be to show a black body reveling in their monstrousness, in their making a paradise out of hell.
Jacob Anderson's performance is the lever that turned a trapdoor into an escape route, and i am grateful for the work he put into Louis. going back to s2 finale interviews where JA looked at it as closure for Louis makes sense in light of the vampire lestat.
tl;dr: AMC's the vampire lestat channels it and its source material's anti blackness through and on the brown and black bodies previously viewed as characters, but have now flattened into narrative tools to pave the way for the rehabilitation of Lestat.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
i cant help posting abt this im sorry its so funny that rolin jones spent years toting around that earmarked copy of the vampire lestat and then didn’t adapt it
how do you take what is easily rice’s best book and a stacked cast and become so frightened of the first two seasons of your show being about black characters that you just start doing a random jig
my final thoughts on tvl (mostly under a read more as this is a very long post):
from the moment the first episode of the vampire lestat dropped, it was evident that this show was going to be nothing more than a shoddy, poorly paced mess that cared more about humiliating louis—alongside its other black and brown characters—than telling any sort of cohesive or lovingly crafted story. the amc team set out to undo the two previous seasons of impactful writing, and punish those of us who resonated with interview with the vampire and the characters it presented to us viewers.
rolin, hannah & co. rewrote some of their powerhouse characters (louis, claudia and assad) around uplifting a white man and excusing him of the things that he's done, but even in that they failed. because this season did not make lestat more likeable; it barely fleshed out any of his past, but made it a point to show us him kissing his mother every episode, and even that was oftentimes played for no more than shock value or laughs. there was no character development on lestat's part, even when other characters' writing was sacrificed to exonerate him.
there is genuinely no winning with this fandom or show as a black viewer. when the first season came out everyone went on and on about Book Accuracy™ and how the changes made were an affront to the legacy of anne rice's story. and as a result it was review-bombed by racists for how unabashedly black it was. then season two came out and everyone took the opportunity to say that louis was lying about what happened and that he was on an equal playing field regarding lestat and armand. and critics couldn't be bothered to praise jacob, delainey and assad for their incredible performances, instead turning the spotlight on sam, despite lestat being one of the more minor characters until ep 7. and things only got worse once iwtv ended
s3/tvl started promo and already the shift was obvious. rolin talked shit from day one "it's the lestat show", "it's no longer two old men sitting in a room", "the season ended with hugs and kisses", "if you hate this season you hate lestat and daniel" etc. sam had to correct rolin twice over the things he was saying regarding other cast members. promotion for this season when above and beyond, every poster was a lestat solo and people argued that that was due to this being lestat's season. ignoring the fact that lestat was still a prominent character on many of the s2 posters. they did countless tv spots and photoshoots and a live concert and a fashion collab, and basically did everything in their power to promote this now white-led season as much as they could.
they baited people with loustat and lestat flashbacks and incredible writing, claiming that this was their best season yet, and there's been either none or very little of those things. the pacing is awful, louis been reduced to a caricature and punching bag, and not a single character feels fully flushed out or written with genuine passion. yet the book purists aren't kicking up nearly as much of a fuss. lestat being a rockstar was not as big of a plot point as it's been during this season, and they're focusing so much on that (and his relationship with gabriella) that the writing is suffering tremendously.
but then again, i can't even say that because a lot of the choices feel very sinister and intentional: all the women we've seen thus far being sexual props (dee basically just being toted around as a groupie to fuck lestat and whoever else, gabriella being a poorly constructed "femme-fatale" and fucking lestat and whoever else every episode, regina having an only fans, tc having unresolved desires about motherhood(?), christine fucking lestat/being mocked for that and also having a sex dungeon or something? the faux-madeleine kiss). what happened to our well-written and interesting characters? can women not be engaging to viewers unless they're sexual in some way, shape or form?
and louis....they've completely butchered his character to a degree that, as ive said a hundred times before, feels incredibly racist and deliberate. anyone that tries to say that the writers didn't purposefully set out to humiliate louis' character and subject him to as much antiblack racism as possible are purposefully ignoring the evidence in favor of supporting the garbage that was shoveled at us this season. what narrative explanation is there for:
louis apologizing to lestat for a book he didn't want written
louis being called a "nappy headed slave"
louis being told that he can't escape the slave mentality etched into his being
louis being told by claudia that she hates him more than her abusers, rapists, and lynchers
louis sympathizing with a man who mocked his suicide attempt
louis making a comment on being sexually assaulted as a child and never having it explored
louis specifically having his head cut off and put on display
louis being tortured by armand (the man who organized his lynching) and apologizing to armand
louis having armand carve a branding (the first letter of armand's name) into his chest following his (louis') being called a slave in the prior episode
louis' torture being broadcasted live as some sort of fucked up red-room bullshit
louis not seeing the ghost/hallucination of his brother, but that being reserved for lestat. and that ghost then apologizing to lestat on louis' behalf and thanking lestat for "loving him the way he needs to be loved".
nothing that the writers had louis experience this season did anything for his character, he was used for torture porn and to lick the wounds of his white (ex)-partner, who he still refers to as the love of his life. louis is denied the right to be a victim and expected to understand that everything he went through was ultimately a result of his own sins and flaws. why was louis not someone that armand apologized to when he wrote his letters? because those apologies were reserved for white men that he did not hurt nearly as much as louis?
why did armand torture louis but leave lestat alone? why did the writers have armand torture a black woman as a way to hurt louis, but lestat was spared from this horrific abuse? why did louis have to apologize to armand for not loving him or whatever the fuck, while lestat was, as i said, not faced with this name vitriol? i don't even care about "ship wars" at this point, but why did armand tell louis that he never really loved him? and to expand on that point; why did claudia also tell louis that lestat was the one that she actually liked? why, again and again, is louis being shown as unlovable, undesirable, and the true evil villain that has plagued everyone's past.
there is a specific sick joy taken by the writers in subjecting louis (and regina and claudia) to as much antiblackness and suffering and cruelty as possible. louis is a victim as much (and even more, at times) than any one of the other main characters this season, and yet that is constantly cast aside so they can continue to push this rhetoric that louis is The Awful, Manipulative Pimp.
nevermind the fact that lestat murdered prostitutes and kept dee around to do no more than fuck and drink from her. nevermind the fact that armand kidnapped people to be tortured and eaten for his shitty plays. nevermind the fact that lestat and armand directly contributed to the almost-lynching of louis and the lynching of his daughter and her lover. "they're all monsters, they're going to behave this way" except for when its louis, then he needs to be repeatedly punished?
and with regards to the trial: why is that never fully addressed again? lestat can be disproportionately mad at louis for a book daniel wrote and published (without his permission), but louis can't be upset at lestat for taking part in the murder of their daughter? they couldn't even be bothered to write lestat telling louis that he was under armand's control. would that have not been another way to absolve this white man of his crimes, as they're so eager to do? but because they have it said two times that lestat went there of his own volition, we're just supposed to gloss over the fact that this man knowingly planned to murder his lover, and succeeded in murdering his daughter? but louis is the one that apologizes and begs for forgiveness??
this is a quick aside, but they also completely ruined armand's character. they took such a complex, interesting and fantastic character and stripped him of all his parts. now he's just the undesirable south-asian man (which is horribly racist in and of itself) that deluded himself into thinking he and lestat had a relationship, and apologizes genuinely to his white lovers but hates the black man he lied to and brainwashed for 77 years. the writers use armand as another character (like claudia) to spew their personal hatred for louis, and believe that they will be above reproach because armand is not a white man.
armand is a survivor of csa and that is their excuse for how he brutally tortures louis and drags an apology out of him, but when does he subject gabriella to this? she abused lestat for decades and decades as both a mortal and a vampire. but since that wasn't done to armand he doesn't care? but oh wait...that argument falls apart when you realize that louis didn't sexually abuse armand either. he is being punished for something he did (not to armand) over a century ago, and if that's the case, lestat and armand and gabriella should be drawn and quartered for their crimes. but, no, nothing anyone else does matters, this season is solely about humiliating louis as much as possible. lestat and daniel actually made fun of armand's trauma this season, but it's louis that deserves to be tortured....right, right...
i really don't even care about loustat at this point, but we were told that we were going to see louis "through lestat's eyes" and that it was going to be beautiful and this was allegedly the coolest louis has ever looked. but all we've gotten is lestat being horribly cruel to louis and calling him crazy, mocking his suicide attempt, and acting put-upon when louis goes to him for help. the closest we came to genuine loustat was at the very beginning of the season. and then when the book dropped they used that as an excuse to have lestat disparage louis in one way or another every time he's mentioned or they share a scene.
every single relationship louis made in the iwtv s1 & s2 is butchered or straight-up retconned. daniel wanted to reconcile with louis but all of a sudden doesn't care about that and is willing to help armand enact his laughably villainish plan? armand was chasing after louis and begging him to understand the end of the previous season but now he's torturing louis and forcing him to apologize for...what exactly? claudia berates him and the complex feelings she had for louis are watered down to vitriolic rage and antiblack language reserved solely for only one of her parents? lestat was tearful and remorseful during the iwtv s2 finale but is now mocking louis' suicide attempt and calling him a cancerous jackal?
the finale was all of their grievances with louis and hatred for the explicit blackness of the first two (but especially first) seasons rearing its nasty, ugly head. they succeeded in destroying beloved characters and giving the racist fans that hated louis exactly what they wanted. they backed out of and changed almost every writing choice they made during iwtv s1 and s2, and even if their end goal for this show was to drive louis and lestat back together, they did that in the most manufactured and racist way possible.
there was no story told this season, we learned almost nothing new by the end of it. akasha didn't even awaken and the rockstar angle was pointless and used as nothing more than to artificially pad the runtime and make up plot points that went literally nowhere. tvl felt like the writers fucked up version of a 'fix it' fanfiction, because there was nothing that needed to be fixed in iwtv to begin with.
in conclusion, this show did not need to be made. begging jacob to come back just for his character to be treated this way was very, very callous and disrespectful to the phenomenal acting that jacob does. to say im disappointed and heartbroken for jacob, delainey and assad would be an understatement—they have been forced to defend and explain awful choices made for their characters this season despite not having been the ones to write them. and people will continue to use them as scapegoats for this season to pretend that "they were on board" with the racism and antiblackness, as if black and brown actors aren't repeatedly blacklisted for speaking out against bigoted writing choices. my heart bleeds for whatever jacob and assad will be subjected to at sdcc.
tldr; this season would have been written completely differently had louis, claudia and armand been white as they were in the books. rolin, hannah and the others writers for this season sought to create an antiblack, racist, misogynistic, misogynoir-laden mess in a failed attempt to rewrite their white lead's cruelties and victimize him at the expense of every non-white character in the show. and they delight in watching a large portion of their viewership happily consume this slop and defend every single one of their writing choices while their black and brown cast are put on the spot to defend this shit. it is obvious, and to defend or excuse it is doing no more than showing that you support what they've done and don't care about how harmful it is.
and, finally: if you're going to come into my comments or ask box to defend the blatant racism this season, please do not waste your breath. im at the point now where i will be blocking you instead of explaining my thoughts for the hundred millionth time. and beyond that, i have no desire to go back and forth with racist, media illiterate people on the internet.
thank you to everyone who read this to the end.
warm winds on a space ride @youmustdotime - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook
vaporwave
romaincrisis
2087
dailybridgerton
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
tangentwithtanner
