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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no, but how sinister this is... you have a black actor who was physically and mentally exhausted after filming very depressing and triggering season of television (featuring psychological and physical abuse, torture, suicide, lynching, tragic deaths) where he plays a character he, by his own admission, empathize a lot with. and we know from interviews that filming some of the scenes was very physically uncomfortable and horrible to him as well. and that black actor didn't really wanna return for 3rd season of the show, but was promised by the (white) showrunner that his character won't be brutalized. just for that to turn out to be a lie. and in the end his character was brutalized in a much more horrible, graphic and pointedly antiblack manner than in all previous seasons.
all the while non-black producers and writers gaslighted the actor that his character deserved it and teased him with condescending bullshit like repeating his closing line from the previous season back to him or performatively asking if he hates them for all this. maybe i'm reading too much into it, sure. but this looks to me like typical "friendly" bullying? like people who pretend to be your friends but secretly kinda find you annoying and take joy in your suffering? i'm sorry but. okay, i'm not gonna say anything. i'm not gonna say anything anymore.
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You couldn't make this up. Rolin Jones 'hates writing about identity' and yet has was so desperate to adapt a book that's very introspective and all about identity. This actually explains a lot about this season fixating on the rockstar part and ignoring Lestat's backstory and most of the psychological and interpersonal dimension that make up the majority of the book. Rolin saying stuff like he didn't want to include much of Nicki stuff because they already kind of hit those beats with Louis. All the character focused scenes being presented as an exposition dump. It's all about plot mechanics and entertaintment for him. Rolin literally didn't care about the actual core of the story and was resentful for having to write about it at all
You can't escape, you can't win as a Black person. Real life is miserable, fiction is miserable. The fandom that claims to be an escape for gay and trans people is virulently anti-Black. And when you say, "wow, this is miserable, is there any justice, is there anything we can enjoy, can we participate in the world?", everyone and their klan grandmother screams NO and gets mad at YOU for ruining their fun.
I guess we should've known better, right? No matter the age, no matter the genre, that there is no fun to be had in Blackness, not if you're the entertainment, not if you're the lynched and branded body. Fuck the actual fuck out of everybody.
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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
iâm sick of ppl trying to equivocate that claudia couldâve been that hateful and mad at louis without the racism. no she wouldnât 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 itâs clear that itâs not fully claudia and louis was shittier to her there. or accepting that he was a pimp after all even if thatâs not ~all he was. no he wasnât. 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 donât have to concede some bullshit about louis having been selfish or cruel or equally at fault for claudiaâs abuse. itâs still victim blaming to say the seance was right that louis didnât change bc heâs taking the abuser back. itâs victim blaming to equivocate that he and armand equally couldnât consent to the bdsm and that louis was a bad dom even if he still didnât need to apologize to armand. that antiblack torture scene has nothing to do w louisâ 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? donât 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, thatâs 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 Louisâ redeeming qualities? Why do these men continue to stay with him and obsess over him?
Original post
Iâve 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 Louisâ 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 Jacobâs 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 theyâd 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 wouldnât call it lightning in a bottle. That would mean intent. Itâs 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 didnât plan to tell a lackluster story, I think the richness of Louisâ 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 âcontroversialâ I genuinely mean âdebatedâ, 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 Lestatâs 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 thereâs 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 âwait what was Louisâ apology to Lestat in the finale about? Was that Louis coming to terms with himself, or was that the show engaging in victim blaming?â And everyone has different POVs on it. Itâs clear now, that the ambiguity behind the scene, behind quite a few scenes in S2, is because the writers themselves couldnât agree on what they wanted them to mean.
But with all the people theyâve let go for Season 3, and the new ones they hired on, itâs obvious which side remained on-staff and the kinds of likeminded people they got to take the othersâ place.
So now, in Season 3, there is no debate. There is no âhm I can see this interpretation but I can also see this interpretationâŚ.â Thereâs no ambiguity. This side of the team, the side that viewed Louisâ apology in S2 as Louis apologizing for âabusingâ Lestat, that seemed to view Louisâ 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 writerâs 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 wasnât born from heartfelt creativity and love for the material. Itâs out of agreed upon resentment and shared biases. You even have the production designers of all crew members throwing in âI always liked Lestat moreâ 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 Louisâ 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 Rolinâs âwe wrote from the gutâ or âthe idâ 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. Assadâs Armand shot through the ROOF and instantly became one of the most popular characters in S2. Iâd even argue is Thee second most popular after Lestat (Iâd say Daniel is the second most popular among casual viewers whereas among non-casual viewers, itâs 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 Sideâ˘ď¸ of the creative team off after Season 2âs release. With none of them expecting Assadâs 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 & DMâs âdevelopmentâ 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 DMâs eagerly anticipated relationship happened completely off screen, and both characters butchered so it would be intentionally unsatisfying once revealed. (And the excuse that theyâre a minor / secondary relationship so they were never going to be as focused on doesnât 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 âmetaâ that they kept talking about in pre-S3 interviews isnât that the writers just kept the fanbase in mind while making it, itâs that the entirety of Season 3 is a response to the fans themselves. Itâs less about the actual characters that were written in Seasons 1 & 2, and comes off more as one long Twitter thread titled âMy IWTV Hot Takesâ
Because you also canât say any of this was for Lestat. Itâs very reminiscent to Season 2, when Lestat point blank says âI hurt Louis because I wanted to hurt himâ and a portion of the fanbase shoved a pacifier in his mouth to shut him up and for years afterwards kept saying âNo he didnât mean it.â Even Samstat was reduced from a character into a figurehead.
Loucob became a punching bag, Claudlainey and Assadâs 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 âWhy would the writers write Louis this way? Why would anyone like him?â 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 doesnât make sense from that POV. Everything weâre 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 isnât a season at all. Itâs a cokerant thread on Twitter. Itâs a callout post on Tumblr. A 72-part TikTok story. Itâs little more than the writersâ tantrum because fans werenât playing with their dolls the way they wanted us to.
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in june weâre 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.
