the finale was actually just loumand revisionist history (AND danlou, we’ll get to that later). like they are trying to retcon the fact that armand and louis had any love for each other AT ALL. of course we can point to the obvious and POINTLESS gruesome torture and the fact that louis only endeavors to empathize with armand because he was scared for his life and for regina’s rather than simply telling him this because, idk, they CARED about each other. but im gonna focus on two retcons in particular that shows the writers fundamentally trying to misrepresent this dynamic.
1. louis saying he never forgave armand for paris. this one just doesnt make sense because throughout the majority of their marriage, louis never knew that the trial and claudia’s execution was his fault. so why wouldn’t there be love there? we saw how louis and armand acted in season two prior to the twist: did that look like a couple where they were both secretly harboring resentment???
and 2. this is a small thing, but oh it is really is a big thing. it’s the line where armand says he put the fred stein photo’s in louis’ portfolio because he wanted to “fuck with his mind”. one, that’s pointless, what would armand have to gain from fucking with the mind of his then husband. what could he possibly have to gain from louis that louis would not be able to give freely. but it also is just a blatant bastardization of what made armand sympathetic and loumand interesting in the first place. armand didn’t put those photos in there because he wanted to “fuck with his mind”. the implicative reason for that action season two provided is much MUCH more accurate. armand wanted louis to be proud of his work because he loves and cares about him, and this was his roundabout, armand way of making that happen. of course it was read as creepy and meddling because armand doesn’t really know how to love others properly. the only way he knows how to love is meddling and fabricating and orchestrating lies, but the thing that the writers apparently want you to forget is that he tries. armand always endeavors to love. armand tried to love louis (and louis did the same!!). he tried to love lestat. he is trying to love daniel (the writer’s are fucking it up, but he’s trying). armand always tries to love, and they are just completely erasing the fact that he has ever put a sincere effort in understanding anyone who isn’t daniel because they’re rushing through the devil’s minion development and There Can Only Be One Pairing evidently.
thats what made him likable in season 2, despite the fact that he was virtually the antagonist of that season: it’s never perfect but armand always always ALWAYS endeavors to love. that’s why armand covered up his part in the trial in the first place. why would he have covered that shit up if he DIDNT love louis and WASN’T afraid of loosing louis??? is it so wrong to say that armand valued louis at any point??? that armand put up with louis’ bouts of (OFF SCREEN, BTW) coldness and resentment because he had some empathy of the fact that louis was MOURNING??? apparently it is to the writers. apparently louis has no credibility or relatability in how he acting in that marriage and apparently armand never loved him and secretly loved daniel or whatever. and i LIKE devil’s minion A LOT ok it’s just like. why did you have to destroy every discernible dynamic, and BORROW story beats from said dynamics (the rothko chapel devil’s minion bit—how is that any different than armand’s benign meddling with the fred stein photos?) just to destroy them. and you had the audacity to do that after teasing loumand throughout the season, with the auction scene and louis going weirdly into detail about san francisco in the lawyer debate scene. this is sincerely a season for no one’s enjoyment other than racist louis antis
Watched TVL after dark (so you don’t have to) here are some points
the host said this was the best season of television she has watched, Rolin thanks her but the actors are like not reacting to it… except for Delainey who’s face KILLED ME (it seems to me she’s throwing a glance at Jacob)
-I wanna say that all the actors looked so uncomfortable the entire episode. No one wanted to be there or discuss it. All questions the actors got was deflected by them to praise someone else’s good work (ex. Jacob praising Assads and Delaineys acting when asked about the torture scene)
- Rolin says basically that maybe it felt nothing happened but that’s only because Lestat has such a strong “armor” and doesn’t want to look inside himself and that they need another season to actually explore him as a character
-the head chopped happened bc they wanted to explore how Lestat would react to being near death… and it was the thing that made him realize Gabi was abusive.
- Sam Reid loved the Paul scene because all Lestat wants to hear is that Louis loved him? Unclear to me maybe it’s bc I’m not a native English speaker
-Rolin and the writers made the conscious decision to remove Claudia from the long table (…)
- maybe I’m projecting but Delainey seems sad and off and doesn’t want to be there and like she disagrees with all the writing choices for Claudia… :( my goat.
-Hannah said Rolin hated writing about identity and wrote about it all this season. It’s a lot about creative failure and Rolin didn’t like it. (That shows)
-Assad was asked about the torture scene and said that Armand felt seen by Louis and it reminded him why he fell in love with Louis in the first place :( he didn’t seem to like talking about it
-Hannah said that Armand was violent bc he knew that he’d been used in all sorts of ways by Louis and “he wanted what he wanted” ?!?!?!?? 🤨🤨😡🤨 Assad and Jacob both looked displeased by the answer
Again wtf?!?!??!? Armand tried to lynch Louis and killed his daughter and lied about it for 77 years ?!()?(???!?!!!!!?,?? I love Armand but Jesus wtf is this DARVO
-Jacob didn’t want to talk about the torture scene at all…
This pissed me all the way off Rolin interjects and says that he found it EXTRAORDINARY that after 2 seasons of Louis “navel grazing” and only being involved in his own stuff… that Louis can admit “what did I do that caused this guy to chop of my head?”
WTF IS THIS VICTIM BLAMING ?!?
Delainey and Jacob both look down to the ground uncomfortably
Jacob then says (sarcastically imo) “That’s Louis way of saying the fault is mine”
They get into the “pimp” and “sex slave” aspect. Assad and Jacob tries to save it by saying there’s layers to abuse and this was just one aspect of Loumands dynamic and there are intersections.
- The host asked where Rolin would like to take the story
His answer is “um there’s a lot of things people wanted to see that didn’t get included this season (them telling and not showing the whole season) that QOTD will have another framing device and point of views structure.
He also said that they risked failure this season (hm sure did) and he’s excited to continue bc they only told half of Lestat’s story.
This is my subjective reading from my own watch of this episode keep that in mind.
This is some deep level of psychosis happening, where these people can open these mouths and act like Louis EVER abused Armand. And these preposterously vile words are leaving Rolin, Hannah, Assad, AND Jacob's mouths.
Which is why I'm not looking for explanations from NONE of these people; when what was CLEARLY needed were BLACK writers (AND Desi/South Asian writers) to tap them on the shoulder and say: Hey, what Y'ALL think is such a great idea cuz oo-la-la it's all so complex and stimulating or wtvr is actually coming across as EFFING OFFENSIVE. Your intentions vs executions are at a severe disconnect! And now you're pissing on our heads telling us it's raining as y'all try to VALIDATE this effed up story arc, WTF is wrong with y'all at AMC?! (And once again, like I keep saying: Delainey's the only one smart enough to keep her mouth SHUT.)
AMC, your "good intentions" may be to allow Louis to finally realize that he's been too withholding with his love, and that it comes across as cold/selfish/etc--but y'all are so far up your own arses about abuse/power imbalances that you've OVERSHOT the mark, and completely missed that Louis was NEVER the one with REAL power in Loumand's relationship! So now AMC's on the Road to Hell with abuse apologia & victim-blaming, to act like Louis & Lestat getting their heads cut off and livestreamed was all Louis fault for not loving Armand enough and "abusing" him?!
ARMAND had an entire coven threatening to KILL Claudia & Louis in 2x3--Armand was in the sewers ready to set Louis on FIRE, while Louis patiently stood there and ACCEPTED that he was going to DIE.
ARMAND stopped HIMSELF and let Louis go. Louis didn't fight or argue or plead his case or manipulate or control Armand AT ALL.
Loumand then trauma-bonded over the ways LESTAT had broken them BOTH, and how hung-up on Lestat they BOTH were, but Armand especially: "What is time to a vampire?"
But rather than AMC acknowledging that Armand's got centuries of baggage FROM LESTAT that PREDATE Louis even being effing BORN, they're dumping all of LESTAT'S (heck--not even Lestat: MARIUS') involvement in Armand's trauma on LOUIS' shoulders--
--cuz GOD FORBID Lestat should have to face REAL criticism from REAL people actually STILL ALIVE in his REAL life, and not just a bunch of HALLUCINATIONS in his head, as he's coddled & hidden away in a bowling bag not having to FACE the REAL consequences of HIS effed up crimes--
Louis invited Armand to his flat to have transactional sex (I'm not even done watching the After Dark as I'm typing this--did they even BOTHER mentioning Louis' cousin?!) and broker a deal that Armand would "keep the secret" about Bruce/Lestat so CLAUDIA wouldn't be killed for breaking the Great Laws she's literally JUST sworn herself to!
The Maitre roleplay was UNDER-NEGOTIATED Dom/Sub Kink that NEITHER Louis nor Armand were fit to consent to or participate in, because yes, they BOTH had too many effed up traumas & presumptions about what "power/control" meant due to their FORMER lives as a pimp & sex slave.
Even before the Maitre roleplay, ARMAND was the one nagging Louis in 2x4 to keep hanging around the coven when Louis explicitly said he didn't want to be there anymore, cuz he hated TdV, and only agreed to MAKE ARMAND HAPPY. He wasn't even there to watch Claudia perform; he was there to pay Armand back just for keeping HER alive--even though Louis & Santiago hated each other and Santiago wanted Louis DEAD ASAP. And Louis repeatedly TOLD Armand that it was JUST SEX, that they were NOT companions!
The same way Louis told him in The Tower Scene that he was only with Armand as a way to get back at Lestat--and Armand even admitted that he was "dumbfounded" that LESTAT didn't bother to stop them and reveal Armand's hand in LYING to Louis about "Banishment".
Lesmand BOTH played Louis for a fool! How TF was Louis ABUSING anyone, when he was the one who didn't even know what was going on over his head!?
Armand KNEW he was the rebound, and that he stayed with Louis cuz otherwise he'd have nothing!
Why is everyone acting like Armand got tricked into this dynamic, instead of him willingly entering a loveless marriage Louis OPENLY ADMITTED was built on spite against Lestat for THE TRIAL--spite that only existed because of the SEISMIC LIE ARMAND told Louis about Lestat!? 🤣🤦♂️
AMC is out of their effing minds acting like Louis is showing "GROWTH" by taking ALL of the blame for Armand's nonsense, when that's literally just victim blaming & abuse apologia--especially when they effing said it themselves that Louis was doing it UNDER DURESS as he was being TORTURED and was already HALF DEAD from ARMAND decapitating him and DEMANDING an apology!
Just because Louis can acknowledge that his role in Loumand's failmarriage was toxic & unhealthy & selfish does NOT mean that it was inherently "ABUSE" -- it's like they've completely lost their plot in their over-zealousness to over-correct because they literally said it themselves: Louis got off TOO EASY in 2x8.
AMC, aside from blatantly sadistic antiblack racism, why does Louis' "growth" have to come at the cost of him being tortured & lynched into a confession by his daughter's killer and his own abuser that everything wrong with said 500yo abuser is HIS fault?
And explain how that is NOT victim-blaming abuse apologia. QUICKLY! 😡
Rewatching the first season and I can’t help but notice how much more fleshed out even the minor characters are. Like Bricks. She’s got such good characterisation that allows her to be reliably written throughout the scenes she’s in and have an actual voice in them. And they do this with maybe 5 minutes of screen time?
In comparison most of the minor characters in TVL barely have any personality. Like the band. Genuinely what could you reliably say about any of their characters? Larry is kind of sulky and jealous? Alex is…. I’ve got nothing on Alex. Salamander is kind of dumb and TC is… yeah I’ve got nothing again. Everything we know about her has been told to us by other characters.
I absolutely did not care about them being turned into vampires because I absolutely do not care about them.
Y’all will never convince me that show Daniel is the cure Armand has been waiting on. The love he deserves and has been waiting for. No offense to my dm followers but I just can’t see it. 🤷🏽♀️
Since the first episode that mf has been…Daniel 😂 called Armand a rent boy, Shah Rukh Khan, claimed he lied about “Arun, Amadeo” but idk they’re all vampires and monsters and all fucked up so enjoy ig. 🙃
I mean I think the show is just being more open about what they always thought, there was a written interview in 2024 after season 2, where the cast was questioned on why Louis chooses complicated men like lestat/armand? And jacob answered that Louis was the complicated man, while Sam straight up said ‘Louis is the problem’. I was sure of what was their agenda from then, Louis is the one who complicated these relationships by being difficult and selfish, and Armand/lestat was just responding to it. Sure their response was toxic but hey can you blame them?? Armand is a wounded creature and Lestat is one too, Louis is lucky to get their attention despite being such an unremarkable character while being soo difficult. In a recent interview Sam said Louis didn’t let Armand shine (his gremlin side) like lestat does, I know Sam is just one person but the creative team moves according to these views imho. Somehow Louis is both difficult and demanding enough to control these relationship and how these powerful vampires behave while being too weak and spineless to not get hurt nonetheless. And if he is in pain too long? It’s him being self-absorbed, and failing his loved ones during it. I’m maybe exaggerating a little but I think this is closer their sentiment than how yall were discussing them until now
The way I got this ask only hours before 3x07 dropped. Damn I guess it really was our fault for perceiving the black victim of abuse as a victim of abuse
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.
It has been said that Rolin apparently built the entire season around this final episode. Hannah said that this was written as a possible series finale. The season has watered down every character for the apparent purpose of redeeming Lestat but many people have stated they dislike him even more. There is no closure for fans of any character. The writers said they have backed themselves into a corner and they don't have a solid plan to get out of it. Who could all of this possibly serve? Well, it serves Rolin Jones.
Rolin has built this entire season around the concept of "failure" and instead of exploring Lestat's past failures in detail, he has centred Lestat's arc around being a failed artist. Lestat was a successful rockstar in the books and he was shown to be a successful theatre actor in S2. If anything, Lestat was consistently presented as a prideful artist - how he separated man from food. I truly believe S1 Lestat, who murdered the tenor for an offending note, would never perform cheap and meaningless music that the culture despises. Lestat's failings have always stemmed from his terrible actions. He never once failed at the arts. Where has this come from?
The decisions with Lestat's character in TVL only make sense to me if I view him as Rolin's self insert. They skipped over Lestat's past like it was a contractual obligation and made Lestat a complete shell of himself to the point he is almost never seen doing anything autonomously. He is no longer a complex character with interesting motivations for flawed action, he is a mouthpiece for Rolin's feelings around creating this show. TVL is not a continuation of the story but it is Rolin's response to IWTV.
We see this through the constant revisiting of events from previous seasons and the changing of their meaning. Louis "lied" about Lestat's scars. Claudia lied about the train. Justice for Antoinette. Lestat never loved Armand. Armand questions if he ever loved Louis. Akasha's blood made Lestat drop Louis. Tom Anderson is a fan favourite. Armand planted the Steins. Claudia actually preferred Lestat. There is hardly any story that serves as character development. It is constantly going back over every crevice of the story and dictating what exactly the audience should feel. Most of this commentary has no purpose other than to undermine what was once the beating heart of the story: it's cast of colour and commentary on race.
In TVL, Louis has been subjected to constant, often anti-black, humiliation both by the narrative and the characters around him. For a character who ended season 2 self assured and happy in himself, this arc for Louis has done nothing but regress his character to a worse place than he started. Armand has been poorly written to violently torture Louis into apologising to him for no reason at all other than to warrant positioning Lestat as the "right kind of love". Claudia has been poorly written to always have despised Louis for no reason at all other than to position Lestat as morally superior. All of this for audiences to end up not being sold on Lestat's supposed redemption. I have to assume that all of this wasn't really for Lestat's benefit. It was always about trampling on what Interview With The Vampire meant to it's audience - the majority of whom are marginalised people.
From this season, it is evident that Rolin prefers disjointed storytelling with snarky and sarcastic humour over linear, detailed storytelling with an empathetic outlook. What if the piece of writing you'll always be known for isn't the style of storytelling you want to pursue? What if your writing never made it into cultural conversation until you wrote something that is the opposite of yourself, your personality and your politics? Would you see yourself as a failed artist?
Watching the writers contort and warp the characters I once adored into nothing but vessels for anti-black rhetoric and abuse apologia has been so frustrating and heartbreaking. But I am sure that Rolin got what he wanted by using this season as a way to work out his insecure relationship to his own art. The ending sequence of his self-insert version of Lestat looking out on a destroyed world is quite the metaphor.
people focusing on the writers feeding them with “transfem lestat” while ignoring the vehement antiblackness they're putting the black gay man through kinda perfectly encapsulates the priorities of white queer fandom
also this is a secondary concern compared to the pervasive and gleeful antiblackness on the show, but lestat's line in s3ep7 that feeds into transfem readings feels like another example of this season going for "tell, don't show" and expecting fanon and fannish interpretation to carry the weight of what they aren't depicting onscreen. the s1ep7 marie antoinette drag scene is one of my fave in the whole show- and i mentioned before s3 aired that after rolin cited rocky horror and hedwig and the angry inch as s3 influences back in 2024, the lack of rockstat drag onstage felt like a glaring omission and was possibly tied to amc's corporate queerphobia given the obvious double standards in how they depict m/m and f/f v m/f intimacy. if the show wanted to make the idea of lestat being genderqueer or some form of transfeminine firmly canon, we could've seen a whole arc play out in s3 especially with gabriella coming back into lestat's life. imagine if drag was a consistent part of rockstat's look and stage performance, and esp around gabriella he insisted it was all for show, meaningless, he was just clowning, and as her control over lestat's music career and lestat himself increased we saw her steering him toward more conventionally cismasc presentation...and then we got hit with the quiet honesty of the line where lestat admits he does wish he was a woman sometimes as a resolution to a season-wide narrative that's primed for further exploration in s4. (this would also be in the hypothetically well-written s3 where lestat faces what he did to louis and claudia more firmly too, instead of 6-7 eps of wheel-spinning and darvo, and safe to say he would not be saying this to the apparition of louis' brother come to comfort him while louis is being tortured). they could've pulled on late 18th century ideas of gender that would've been formative to lestat (male performers performed fem roles then too- show him playing a woman when he was human and having a euphoric experience, show him interested as a child in the markers of femininity and womanhood that gabriella possesses and she rejects etc) being gnc/genderqueer/nonbinary/transfem/gnc (whatever your interpretation of lestat is) in 18th century france and then the early 20th century new orleans and then north america in 2025 are extremely different- your lead is an immortal vampire who's lived through all those eras, explore that.
but instead of doing any of that, instead of engaging with lestat's gender in any kind of arc, the show adds a throwaway line (in a season of throwaway lines) that can be interpreted depending on viewer bias as 1) lestat genuinely expressing some yearning for womanhood and being trans canonically or 2) still-cis lestat just saying he wishes he and louis had a heterosexual relationship to begin with bc it would've made their lives easier- like even though their relationship would've still been illegal if they were a m/f couple, they at least would've had paul and maybe the rest of the de pointe du lacs' acceptance- and plenty of casual viewers are gonna walk away with the 2nd impression. (and speaking of the de pointe du lacs, louis mentioning he was molested is another one of the throwaway lines with paradigm-shifting impact that the show doesn't care to explore in any depth- why bother developing things onscreen when fans will do the work for them and praise the writers as genius for hinting at depth instead of portraying depth onscreen??)
so many choices this season feel like the writers checking off boxes to confirm fan theories bc they seem cynically aware that a lot of people are watching the show less out of care for good storytelling but more to "win" whatever stan or ship war they're personally invested in. they're lines and moments meant to be screenshotted and shared on socmed for the fandom to talk about, pithy quips that can fit into 1-2 screenshots in subtitles and reposted with more pithy quips. the show doesn't care to explore lestat's gender in any deeper form but it does want fans losing their minds over some form of trans lestat being confirmed (with plausible deniability bc amc is the queerphobia network now)- the show doesn't care to explore devil's minion in any deeper form or show how armand and daniel started plotting together but it does want fans losing their minds over past devil's minion being confirmed, etc.
and this is only if you try looking at the arc (and lack thereof) of lestat's relationship to gender in isolation- when you put it back in the wider context of this episode and this season's antiblackness and the nonblack writers' choice to have paul's spirit (even if he isn't meant to be "real" or at least not represent paul's real thoughts) praise and comfort lestat while louis gets graphically tortured by his lynching director in the same episode. (and the white showrunner has already admitted he felt more for armand than louis in that scene and claimed the "apology" louis was coerced into via torture to be some kinda real moment of understanding, rather than louis doing what we saw him do in s2 and try to appease armand when he's helpless and armand holds his life in his hands.) like with the merrick scene in s3ep6, it doesn't matter what in-universe rationale for these choices are, it doesn't matter whether any of this gets revisited or recontextualized with "oh ghost claudia was lying just to hurt louis' "oh paul's spirit wasn't even real" "oh we were totally tryna critique armand's violent antiblackness" bc the problem here comes down to the nonblack writers' decisions and the choices they made in the real world when crafting this story. this show has had a persistent problem since s1 of depicting the onscreen brutalization of black bodies with far more vividness than it does nonblack bodies, and if a nonblack main character is doing the brutalization (lestat, armand) you aren't supposed to hold it against them or expect these choices to have longterm narrative consequences- the camera lingers on claudia and charlie's charred and "melting" faces as they burn but when daciana, nicki, magnus, bruce, antoinette or madeleine are burning, the camera's far quicker to cut away. and this is a deliberate choice- they weren't just pointing the camera at people spontaneously combusting, they had to allocate an effects budget and invest time and energy into showing black bodies burning with graphic detail. they had both delainey and roxane in the vfx makeup chair for their characters' murder scene, but only claudia's death was shown vividly while madeleine burning was a few brief seconds of ash scattering away.
and i simply can't enjoy any form of this "jangling keys in front of the fandom to validate popular interpretations/ships/theories" writing bc it's such a cynical bid from writers who want and expect their viewers to be satisfied with crumbs that we build elaborate headcanons around instead of expecting any form of depthful storytelling or care from them, especially when it comes to their black characters. fans being content with the show just going down a checklist to validate or debunk specific theories and fans not demanding anything more of the writers than perfunctory expository dialogue is exactly what this writing team is counting on.
also theo is right bc if your only reaction to people criticizing the nonblack writers' choices is to be like "neener neener femstat canon" (black folks critiquing the antiblackness and sharing their reactions to the show depicting this level of gratuitous racialized violence toward black bodies have already received comments along those lines) when that has nothing to do with the antiblackness being discussed here, that's ghoulish. like read the room
and to have PAUL of all people be the one lestat's talking to; this is SO outrageous that i can't even take anything lestat says seriously.
because if this is a room full of all of lestat's VICTIMS--everyone he's KILLED.....
and he insisted multiple times that he NOTHING to do with paul's death and would "NEVER" hurt louis' brother....
but PAUL IS IN THE SAME EFFING ROOM....
then lestat talking randomly about gender/sexuality is the LAST thing i'm thinking about! 💀
cuz guess what other fan theories are getting confirmed here?
that lestat's a effing LIAR who DID drive paul to commit suicide just to isolate & manipulate & control & then ABUSE louis--abuse is trust, on top of abusing louis' mind & body!
whether you're a man or a woman lestat, you're still a MONSTER who categorically did NOT love louis "the way he needed to be loved"
and another throwaway line that confirms THAT is louis in 3x6 going "who else would have us~!" as if y'all are just SETTLING for each other cuz y'all CAN'T love anyone properly!
this show is for the BIRDS, paul was absolutely right about that in s1
i’m sick of ppl trying to equivocate that claudia could’ve been that hateful and mad at louis without the racism. no she wouldn’t 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 it’s clear that it’s not fully claudia and louis was shittier to her there. or accepting that he was a pimp after all even if that’s not ~all he was. no he wasn’t. 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 don’t have to concede some bullshit about louis having been selfish or cruel or equally at fault for claudia’s abuse. it’s still victim blaming to say the seance was right that louis didn’t change bc he’s taking the abuser back. it’s victim blaming to equivocate that he and armand equally couldn’t consent to the bdsm and that louis was a bad dom even if he still didn’t need to apologize to armand. that antiblack torture scene has nothing to do w louis’ 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? don’t 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, that’s 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
1. Bring back the Black writers from Season 1 and Season 2. All of them.
2. Hire Black women. At least two. As new writers.
3. Fire Ryan Kattner, Kevin Hanna and Jonathan Cecineroz and give their salaries to the Black writers. Remove Daniel Hart from the writing room. His rock songs are bad, his orchestral compositions are good.
4. Throw Rolin's phone into the ocean and block access to Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit on his computer. Delete all of the secret social media accounts he uses to lurk. Do the same with every writer and make them live in a remote cabin in the woods.
if youre in the US (especially the northeast + michigan) i would avoid bagged salads/greens and generally wash your produce very thoroughly unless you want the diarrhea parasite
Michigan is experiencing its largest outbreak of a parasitic infection that causes severe diarrhea. Nearly 1,000 people have been diagnosed
this is not life-threatening, but also who wants weeks of diarrhea and a fucking parasite in them lol. if you suspect you've already had this and it's passed, i would see a doctor. you might need an antiparasitic anyway. if you're actively sick, see a doctor and they might be able to prescribe medication to help you get over it faster.
try to avoid eating raw vegetables, scrub fruit with a produce brush and rinse thoroughly with water. again, don't bother with premade greens or bagged salads. if you buy lettuce, remove the outer 2-3 layers of leaves.
there are UNVERIFIED rumors that the greens have been linked to a company that sources to taco bell. some locations have been actively pulling fresh ingredients like lettuce, avocado, and pico de gallo to mitigate the threat, so i would avoid any products from them just in case. considering how vast supply chains are, i'd be wary of any fast food greens in general for now.
further tips from an immunocompromised person obsessed with food safety:
- wash and then cook your vegetables. air fry, bake, sautee, deep fry, whatever to 165F
- if you really want a salad, get locally farmed veg from the farmers market and wash VERY thoroughly. if the farm has info about their labor practices, even better. workers' safety keeps us safe too
- you can blanch some greens too but this isn't as safe as cooking thoughly
- wash your hands thoroughly before & after prepping raw vegetables
- avoid cross contamination in your kitchen from raw vegetables. act like it's raw chicken
I can't help but find it interesting how everything Lestat says is true unless it's Lestat admitting he was an asshole. After episode 3 his fans were denying he cheated on Nicki, now it's confirmed and there's this new narrative that Lestat is lying because whatever reason you pull out of your ass. He admits he wanted to punish both Louis and Armand and it's him lying again, this can't be real, he never said this in reality or he said this because he didn't want to show his vulnerability to Armand. I don't think you guys actually love Lestat for who he is.
I will answer more questions when I am free, but if you keep repeating that m/f scenes this season are more explicit because they are supposed to make you feel uncomfortable and that's the ultimate design, it's not going to become more real. Let's say they are explicit to make the viewers uncomfortable. So only uncomfortable intimate scenes deserve this treatment? Explicitness is allowed when it's disturbing, but not when it's between two people of the same sex who are in love with each other and share the moment of intimacy? And gay people are supposed to be called fetishizers by so-called smart and understanding iwtv queer community whenever they notice this? Showing us BJ's naked ass while she was riding Lestat was necessary because it's not true love and Lestat is hypersexual and it's supposed to drive the point home, but there's no point in showing more of Lestat with Nicki because what, they love each other?
Gabistat is disturbing and that's why it's more explicit, but people who say this also find Loumand disturbing and yet they don't have any similar explicit scenes in season 2. It's alright to admit AMC is homophobic. People can complain about it and should complain about it.
And I agree with everyone who thinks that Jarda/Gabriella scene was executed very distastefully. I had no doubts some people would try to it's supposed to make you uncomfortable their way into justifying it though. The bar is low.
And gay people are supposed to be called fetishizers by so-called smart and understanding iwtv queer community whenever they notice this?
oh they're bringing back that old school homophobia!
want to see queer intimacy for once in this supposedly "gay vampire show"? think queer viewers maybe deserve for the m/m relationships to be treated equally in terms of sex? well then you're repulsive, sex-obsessed fetishist! straight out of the 80s baybeeeee we're taking it back to AIDS crisis era rhetoric!
and where are all of these sex scenes for the two major characters from the source material?
"the show isn't just about sex!!" then why are they showing so much sex suddenly? rolin chose to change vamp biology to include the ability to have sex. why does that only seem to apply to m/f/f threesomes and m/f abuse? where's the consensual, loving sex which gay people have? why is it considered pornographic to wish that were represented in a show which touts itself as being both queer and edgy?
missing the point. again. which is about the kind of explicit sex the heterosexual writers and studio are willing to show
mhm
stop expecting to see queer intimacy, you gross, disgusting, killjoy faggots queers degenerates fetishists!!
oh yeah the books! where lestat and nympho gabrielle are always going at it and where baby jenks is a groupie who has a threesome with lestat in an elevator. those books.
oh? who called him straight? i must have missed that
i think this one might be my favorite:
wish that we'd been allowed to see consensual, loving intimacy between lestat and his first love? well they got more than louis did with men last season, you... biphobe?
genuinely, what is the logic here? lmfao
louis and armand having no real on screen intimacy is the same problem we're talking about now! hilarious how people kept assuring me during season 2 that it was out of respect for armand as a victim of CSA and trafficking. look how that turned out.
also hilarious how i was told claudia and madeleine couldn't even get one kiss (though we had to see the attempted rape of madeleine and hear claudia describe rape they'd shoe-horned in to "toughen her up") because claudia's too young and it's actually great rep for asexuals - why do you hate asexuals?, and you're obsessed with sex and you prioritize romance too much and it's more interesting if the nature of their relationship is kept vague and it's actually a super complex writing choice that you don't get back you lack "media literacy" and same sex relationships are actually deeper and more meaningful when they don't involve sex (absolutely get fucked)
these are homophobic choices. this season especially is riddled with homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic writing choices
girl typing a very specific question into google search bar, scrunching her face as she takes time to make sure she hasn't made any spelling errors, hitting enter, shaking her head as google only presents her with unhelpful websites that don't answer her query at all, moving her cursor back to the search bar and clicking on it so she can carefully write 'reddit' at the end, hitting enter again, sighing with relief as she finds a link to a reddit post asking the exact question she needed answered posted in a subreddit for a very niche topic, finally moving her cursor to click on the link, wondering why she didn't go straight to the subreddit earlier, only to be met with a deleted comment with a reply from the OP stating 'that was very helpful, thanks', sighing with frustration as she moves her cursor back to the search bar so she can copy the link and paste it into the wayback machine,
Replace "reddit" with "reveddit" in any reddit url to reveal deleted or removed comments. If the comment/post was deleted too quickly after it was posted, it may not pull it up, but it works most of the time
girl after reading a post on tumblr dot com with a reblog by user impossiblepackage, moving her cursor over to the url of the aforementioned reddit post, using her mouse to highlight the word “reddit”, typing out the word “reveddit” in its place, hitting enter, waiting with bated breath as reveddit loads, finally content as the deleted comment is displayed in front of her eyes containing the information she sought for so long.
i was lucky enough to attend the premiere on tuesday (as the +1 of a contest winner); in case this is of interest (and, indulgently, to preserve it for my own memory), here are some tidbits from my night:
for the screening, the cast had assigned seats (jacob and delainey in the same row, sam behind jacob, eric behind sam, assad on the other side of the aisle, the same side as rolin, hannah, and mark johnson). sam and jacob were off to the side chatting during intros and never sat in theirs
delainey got applause from the audience upon her first on screen appearance, the only cast member to get one
daniel had a fair few interview beats which got laughs from the audience
afterwards, an actor from the venue came up and gave a little speech as though he was from a sister coven to the TdV in paris. then we were dismissed to the party, which was upstairs
initially post party, assad and luke were in the front larger room of the reception - sam and jacob were, i believe, already gathered in a far back corner in the second room, along with some other people. eric didn't stay for the party
the venue had a couple little 'shows' - at one point the whole cast and some other guests went up several flights of stairs to a room (delainey commented on how many flights there were as we climbed) where a version of the no pain scene from the books was reenacted by venue actors
kalyne coleman was there, i saw her chatting with jacob. i let her cut in front of me for drinks as an excuse to talk to her. there's a nod to grace in the episode and it sounded like that was a surprise to her (a pleasant one!)
my conversations with the cast were deeply unsubstantive, i was too pleased to be there to come up with anything too clever or probing to say tbh
when i spoke to jacob, i started by saying "sorry" (just reflexively) and he immediately, very warmly, was like what are you apologizing for! when i said how excited i was for the season and he said something like 'i hope it doesn't disappoint' (which i did think was surprisingly pessimistic for a premiere party lol but having seen the quote about hoping ppl still like louis by the end, maybe he is actually a tad concerned! i did obviously say i didn't think it would)
sam was the best at these meetings because he very naturally asks questions back. i told him i loved him in the newsreader as well, and he asked whether i was pirating it (i'm not exactly, i had a vpn). then we all walked off to do that no pain scene experience
after the no pain scene, we exited down some stairs which opened to the second smaller room. assad was behind me so i asked him who did it better (these actors or the show), and we joked about that. he then introduced himself to me, and when i couldn't help noting that i did in fact know who he was, he said he would never want to assume. sam came up to us and assad introduced him to me, and i got the joy of saying we'd met!
(SKIP this bullet if you don't want newsreader vibes-based spoilers) sam asked me what i liked better, iwtv or the newsreader. i said iwtv but that newsreader was great and season 2 was so sad! he said season 3 is the last of the series, and told me it's dark and bleak, worse than season 2, maybe only a second of peace/happiness at the end. so. there's that to look forward to....
he also told me about the crossover staffing between shows (emma and the DOP). i tried to ask if he was responsible for any of that but dont think i articulated it well but he said 'you want to work with the people you like'
my delainey convo was brief, i turned while we were walking up to the no pain thing and realized she was next to me, so just took the opportunity to let her know i was excited about her in next season
around 10-ish, sam and jacob left to (i believe?) go to levan's friends bar, along with hannah and others i didn't recognize. assad and luke were around for another 30-40 minutes after that, then the whole thing ended at 11. i didn't notice when or with who delainey left
delainey, as far as i noticed, did the least mingling; assad and luke did the most. generally speaking (and as expected) sam and jacob hung around together or in the same spaces. also perhaps as expected, assad and luke were hanging around together for lots of the night. at the end of the night, when it felt less burdensome to ask, i got a pic with those two. they were very cool about it, luke was sweet, we'd spoken earlier, he stuck out his tongue for one of the shots and he found me again later to chat
that photocall video i took (above) was after the 'no pain' experience.
Here's a clip of more from Misha's panel and he confirmed Robert Berens intentionally wrote that confession to mean romantic love not love in a "love ya bro" kind of way, confirmed Berens was going to leave the show for the final season but stayed so he could see that storyline through, confirmed that there were "stages" to how Destiel was treated in the show, it started out with fandom viewpoints, and then some winks and nods done by the show, and then eventually the writers were working in hints in that direction, he confirmed that yes he and Jensen discussed it, confirmed at a certain point they started playing into it more deliberately (seemingly in pace with the writers and the story hints) and reiterated he was really stunned that they were able to give Cas an open love declaration like that.
This is confirmation of writer intent. Confirmation the actors talked about it and knew about it and played into it, following the writers. Confirmation of creative deliberation. No this was not just some headcanon or fandom delusion.
People at the show, who make the show, were for it, and since the network was never going to let that be full-open mutually confirmed they did their best to convey it however they good. Snuck it in the back door. And we've already been told there was a lot of careful chess-playing to get the confession to air and they were all worried the network might cut it.
No amount of screaming and hate and denial from spnstanbunchanumbers on twitter is going to undo it or make Destiel shippers "delusional" for noticing, make it less canon.
The creatives at spn were on your side. This was not a queerbait. If you want to accuse anything of that, please aim it at the cw network and it's cap on representation and its queer erasure, because broadcast TV networks are like this. They are still like this, things do seem to be changing a little, as Misha said, things are becoming a bit more inclusive and open, but it's not like the whole system reforms all at once.
Cas being gay and canonically in love with Dean got erased in show-connected PR, and for a time, stifled on CE con stages. That doesn't make it not canonical.
FYI for historical context, the reason "canon Destiel" even became the major discourse that it did was because of how the show started handling it differently. That shift happened in Carver era. And Carver hired Berens.
