i'm gonna slowly retag all my post about tvl because i wanna separate it from iwtv.
#tvl, #tvl amc, #tvl spoilers - just general tags.
#tvl critical - more or less objective critique.
#tvl rant - subjective critique and other shit, the same as #iwtv rant.
iwtv tags will stay the same. i will also delete or turn off reblogs for some of my posts. i need to clean up after the murder.
i'm not gonna post about this show as much as i used to. iwtv will stay my darling and for now i'm too hurt to talk about it, but maybe in a few years i'll rewatch it and you'll see me talking about it again. i made some... okay posts about tvl, so i'm not gonna delete them completely, and louis is still a part of this show, so... but don't expect me to write meta for tvl!
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the way i know exactly what is the next move writers are gonna pull after backlash for s3. in s4 we're definitely getting louis doing awful things toward lestat and/or armand. and let me say this... to normal person it's gonna look like louis lost his shit and is finally fighting back lmao. as long as the writers refuse to learn about abuse and power dynamic, it's gonna be uphill battle for them. they almost wrote something interesting with regina this season and then used it to villainize armand again... just really fucking sad how dumb they are.
what other things are you into? what kind of music do you like? what are your favorite motifs/symbols (in art or in general)
that's probably the most difficult question for me because for the last maybe 15 years it's less of a self-definition through what i like and more of a circumstantial "i like this thing because i relate to it at this stage of my life". i guess music is an easy one, i always preferred rock music (with most of the subgenres) and unfortunately i'm not a music nerd/connoisseur like some of my friends. i really really like music as a form of art though, and it's one of the few things that gets me really emotional.
in terms of forms of media, i mostly focus on video games and tv shows, sometimes manga. homestuck was a huge part of my life 10-15 years ago and i have very resentful feelings towards it, but sometimes i can't help thinking about it. at this stage in my life i'm interested in 1) complex characters and/or themes, exploration of humanity, existentialism (that's probably why i started gravitating towards classical literature as well) 2) queer media. i don't really have much interest in coming-of-age stories anymore though.
i tend to really like stories that explore loneliness, mental illness, death, sublime experiences. when it comes to symbolism, i tend to be interested in something connected to nature (flowers/plants is my main thing, water is a huge one too, forest, night, winter etc). mostly because i really enjoy going on hikes and dissociating somewhere deep in the forests lmao, ever since i was a child. idk i just really like experiencing a weird feeling and then searching for it in art or trying to depict it myself (but i'm lazy as fuck).
one of iwtv's key narrative themes was "love and abuse can coexist in the same relationship" but tvl has seemingly replaced that with "love redeems abuse"- instead of engaging with the weight of louis as a survivor of antiblack violence/gaslighting/psychological abuse or engaging with the weight of lestat as a survivor of incestuous sexual/emotional abuse, the narrative condemns loumand and gabistat bc armand and gabriella didn't truly love their victims. the show has this really weird and problematic idea that as long as there's love in a relationship, that can make up for all kinds of harm and violence...but if there's a lack of love that's the breaking point. and i just find that really weak as a theme and disconnected from the emotional reality of abuse survivors- it also feels like a cop-out for the writers to avoid confronting the nature of the abuse of either fan favorite (armand) or author's darling (gabriella) characters.
textually engaging with the fact that armand is a lyncher and the violence he does to louis is often directly pulled from the violence done to black people under enslavement and segregation would mean the nonblack writers would have to textually engage with blackness as a central theme and question their own impulses like why the show disproportionately and voyeuristically depicts the brutalization of black bodies- textually engaging with the fact that gabriella has been raping her own son for over 200 years would mean the misogynistic writers would have to engage with the subject of sexual abuse and assault beyond "louis the pimp" and question their own impulses like why so many of gabriella's scenes with lestat are played for taboo titillation or "comic relief". it's a lot easier to sidestep all of that and go "oh these relationships were fucked up and doomed bc there's no real love there".
and this reductive and anti-survivor take on "love conquers all" even reflects in how the writers approach relationships that aren't meant to be narrative dead-ends. the lack of care in how they wrote loustat this season makes a lot of sense when you realize the writers think they can depict lestat doing and saying all kinds of shit to louis and it doesn't matter, they don't have to show lestat expressing true contrition or growth bc they love each other (or so we're told) abuse doesn't matter if there's love ok
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iβm sick of ppl trying to equivocate that claudia couldβve been that hateful and mad at louis without the racism. no she wouldnβt be. the entire thing is out of character for the iwtv canon, stop trying to give an inch when none of it even matters anymore. even in the books itβs clear that itβs not fully claudia and louis was shittier to her there. or accepting that he was a pimp after all even if thatβs not ~all he was. no he wasnβt. we have long since traced back to the exact real life brothel owner the s1 writers transferred 1:1 to louis. missing and honoring the black writers who made iwtv also means respecting the story THEY wrote, and we donβt have to concede some bullshit about louis having been selfish or cruel or equally at fault for claudiaβs abuse. itβs still victim blaming to say the seance was right that louis didnβt change bc heβs taking the abuser back. itβs victim blaming to equivocate that he and armand equally couldnβt consent to the bdsm and that louis was a bad dom even if he still didnβt need to apologize to armand. that antiblack torture scene has nothing to do w louisβ relationship with armand, it has no basis in canon at all, they just wanted the nbpoc to torture louis bc of the optics bc why the fuck would fareed even be there lol? donβt internalize this white supremacist revisionist bullshit, this show used to mean a lot to jacob for a reason, he and delainey came back for a reason, and we know they were lied to. louis was never selfish or a pimp or cruelly culpable for withholding to the powerful men who hated and battered him, thatβs not softening his agency for perfect victimhood. claudia came back to see him because she loved him and loved him until her very last breath. we know what we saw
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 Louisβ redeeming qualities? Why do these men continue to stay with him and obsess over him?
Original post
Iβve 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 Louisβ 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 Jacobβs 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 theyβd 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 wouldnβt call it lightning in a bottle. That would mean intent. Itβs 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 didnβt plan to tell a lackluster story, I think the richness of Louisβ 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 βcontroversialβ I genuinely mean βdebatedβ, 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 Lestatβs 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 thereβs 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 βwait what was Louisβ apology to Lestat in the finale about? Was that Louis coming to terms with himself, or was that the show engaging in victim blaming?β And everyone has different POVs on it. Itβs clear now, that the ambiguity behind the scene, behind quite a few scenes in S2, is because the writers themselves couldnβt agree on what they wanted them to mean.
But with all the people theyβve let go for Season 3, and the new ones they hired on, itβs obvious which side remained on-staff and the kinds of likeminded people they got to take the othersβ place.
So now, in Season 3, there is no debate. There is no βhm I can see this interpretation but I can also see this interpretationβ¦.β Thereβs no ambiguity. This side of the team, the side that viewed Louisβ apology in S2 as Louis apologizing for βabusingβ Lestat, that seemed to view Louisβ 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 writerβs 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 wasnβt born from heartfelt creativity and love for the material. Itβs out of agreed upon resentment and shared biases. You even have the production designers of all crew members throwing in βI always liked Lestat moreβ 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 Louisβ 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 Rolinβs βwe wrote from the gutβ or βthe idβ 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. Assadβs Armand shot through the ROOF and instantly became one of the most popular characters in S2. Iβd even argue is Thee second most popular after Lestat (Iβd say Daniel is the second most popular among casual viewers whereas among non-casual viewers, itβs 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 Sideβ’οΈ of the creative team off after Season 2βs release. With none of them expecting Assadβs 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 & DMβs βdevelopmentβ 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 DMβs eagerly anticipated relationship happened completely off screen, and both characters butchered so it would be intentionally unsatisfying once revealed. (And the excuse that theyβre a minor / secondary relationship so they were never going to be as focused on doesnβt 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 βmetaβ that they kept talking about in pre-S3 interviews isnβt that the writers just kept the fanbase in mind while making it, itβs that the entirety of Season 3 is a response to the fans themselves. Itβs less about the actual characters that were written in Seasons 1 & 2, and comes off more as one long Twitter thread titled βMy IWTV Hot Takesβ
Because you also canβt say any of this was for Lestat. Itβs very reminiscent to Season 2, when Lestat point blank says βI hurt Louis because I wanted to hurt himβ and a portion of the fanbase shoved a pacifier in his mouth to shut him up and for years afterwards kept saying βNo he didnβt mean it.β Even Samstat was reduced from a character into a figurehead.
Loucob became a punching bag, Claudlainey and Assadβs 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 βWhy would the writers write Louis this way? Why would anyone like him?β 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 doesnβt make sense from that POV. Everything weβre 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 isnβt a season at all. Itβs a cokerant thread on Twitter. Itβs a callout post on Tumblr. A 72-part TikTok story. Itβs little more than the writersβ tantrum because fans werenβt playing with their dolls the way they wanted us to.
in june weβre about to see a beyond nuclear concoction of racism and victim-blaming so rancid and strong and dense i really might have to pull out my anxiolytics for the first time in over a year
btw i skimmed through s1&2 today because i was planning to do research on screentime for queer intimacy in iwtv in comparison to tvl (i don't think i wanna write anything on tvl anymore though). and all i gotta say: iwtv is still really good, we're safe, when my wounds are healed and tvl is erased from my mind, i'll have great time rewatching it.
also i wanna add that in the midst of this utterly shitty writing i kinda didn't even focus on the fact that the trial is treated as a joke now. have you cried at s2e7, my dear viewer? nah, don't worry about this now. i wanna apologize to people with whom i argued about the trial and the way claudia will be treated in this season, because everyone who was saying that "claudia will only be used for angst points now" were totally correct.
they really do pick random moments where they feel like they need to add angst and that's when claudia's name is evoked, but otherwise we're supposed to move on from everything that happened & somehow even joke about it when we feel like it. so it means that all this time the writers totally didn't care and used it for shock value and as part of the "they do horrible things to each other because they're monsters" narrative. we really put a lot of trust in these people huh.
the real reason why we weren't given much press after the ending of s2 is because amc was afraid that rolin would start saying left and right how "the coven had a point" and that he agreed with santiago but "not everyone has the same opinion, so it's okay"
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i like how people ask "why did armand apologize to lestat and daniel but not louis" as if armand is actually feeling remorse and not seeking any kind of structure in his life with these self-improvement steps. he's coping. he probably blames louis for ruining his life or something lol. he and lestat are twins, they both only acknowledge things they want to feel bad about. he probably saw aa advert online, something like "you're not alone" and "unity. service. recovery" and now this is his new routine
i'm done with iwtv and tvl btw. i'll clean up my blog a little bit and will filter out the tags. i'll open back my ask box, but don't expect me to have deep conversations about this show anymore. tvl and especially post-episode conversations opened my eyes on how these writers & producers actually think and i don't wanna support this horrible mess, even generally, because it's not getting better in any way. the writers are very ignorant people.
the way all these conversations about mutual abuse only make sense when you don't consider armand torturing and lynching louis and his daughter as something serious. this writers' room have 0 empathy for black people and is ignorant enough to not realize it. embarrassing shit. the most embarrassing shit imaginable when you consider they... participated in writing two seasons with black protagonists.
what if you fell in love with the show that depicts gothic romance and drama and complex characters and cycles of abuse, and they made 2 almost perfect seasons of it, so you think "it's not an accident, so it can't possibly go wrong".
and then in s3 they decide to change the show and suddenly all the masks come off. the writers you trusted are actually the worst, dumbest, most ignorant people imaginable. and really, it's just that some people get lucky twice in a row.
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the reason i'm finally choosing to separate iwtv and tvl: i didn't understand the full meaning of tvl being marketed as separate show from iwtv at first, but now i understand. this is fundamentally different product. it's not just "they changed the tone!", it's a work of fiction that uses the same characters but exists on completely different terms and for different reasons. the genre is different, the structure of the episodes is different, the whole like... art movement is different. it doesn't have the same focus on emotional complexity and depth, but focuses much more on shock value and self-referential humor. the characters are written for different purposes. it explores completely different themes. it's written for completely different audience in completely different political climate.
this is very much peter jackson's lotr vs hobbit thing for me. it's two trilogies about the same universe with some shared characters, made by (mostly) the same people, but they need to be considered and analyzed separately. because analysis of lotr trilogy can't be meaningfully applied to hobbit trilogy. it's just two separate works of fiction connected through shared universe and creators. it was actually a smart decision to separate iwtv and tvl and i think literally everyone need to do this in the way they interact with tvl.
