there have been four editing passes on my spider sex book, and each time they take away so many commas. no fresh commas are being added, this is just a continued culling. if you see a comma in the final book please understand that it survived so much
Getting dumped really puts children's cartoon villains into perspective. Like dude you're SO right, love and caring ARE disgusting and we SHOULD cast a spell to drain all human emotion into your amulet.
pop health science is so annoying bc it'll be like "did you know? eating strawberries will give you mega cancer" and you're like pfft whatever begone influencer. but sometimes then you'll see a reasonably credible article like "Study Shows Possible Link Between Strawberries and Mega Cancer" and you're not usually the type to follow that kind of thing religiously but idk maybe you should consider not eating strawberries? but then there's another article saying "Strawberry/Mega Cancer Study Debunked" and it turns out the original study had a sample size of 3 and was funded by Big Blueberry, and strawberries may have a small connection to mega cancer but only if you are genetically predisposed to mega cancer and eat 50 strawberries every day. so you return to your strawberry eating life. but whenever you eat strawberries in public someone tells you about the mega cancer.
I'm going to start this by saying if you're NOT BLACK and you come on here trying to tell me what other Black people are saying, or tell me about the books - A)you're getting blocked B) I know what you are - so stay in a white baby's place, which is not my comments.
See. the one thing that has remained true about all three seasons, is that Memory IS A Monster. Just not in the way these showrunners and writers are thinking.
The importance of having Black people in the writers room is not just the handling of dialog, but in the assistance of knowing details and the effect it may, or may not have on an audience. Now we know Rolin Jones wasn't eeeeeeeever going to allow them to call the trial a LYNCHING, because whiteness has to defend itself, but there are other things that stand out to me as a Black viewer.
LOUIS THE PIMP
I remember the very first time Mr. Charles and I watched S1Ep1 and Daniel says "You were a pimp!" in this kind of 'homg, what kind of Black debauchery is this' way. We were cackling.
Have you ever met S1Ep1 Louis de Pointe du Lac? He banters with the girls, who in turn are not afraid to say whatever they want to him. He tries to smooth over problems and the only person we see him get rowdy with is Paul, because "YouĀ couldn't lookĀ weak on Liberty Streetā
This was no Iceberg Slim. This wasn't Max Julien's Goldie. He wasn't even Willie Dynamite. That doesn't take away from the effect Louis had on his girls, those that cried and as he said, he stuffed his ears from the hearing of said cries - but he wasn't like others that I knew from the culture.
So, why has so much been made of Louis The Pimp this season? It's been hammered on again and again. Well, I think Merrick Mayfair tells us what the issue is in Episode 6.
"Great Mama Ernestine sends her regards, says the du Lac boys walked past her porch heads so high you wouldnāt know their money came from flesh."
You know who else had money that came from flesh? Louis de Pointe du Lac. The white one, from the books and films. Vampiredom's saddest, loneliest Participant in That Most Peculiar Institution.
I think this is RJ & Crew's way of saying "Sure, swap 'em out. Racebend to your heart's content, but he's not any better than the slave master and don't you forget it!"
Which is disingenuous for reasons I shouldn't have to explain to grown ass adults on this site.
This season, in my opinion, is about resentment of the Black characters. You don't have to agree, because I'm not writing this for agreement. I'm just thinking out loud. If you like s3, I love that for you. Anyways, the fandom to some degree has always hated Louis, but now I believe the writers are showing their hatred of this Louis to us. This Claudia This season is about the unmaking of these Black characters.
We've all seen the "Louisiana fried chicken" comment. That's not by accident, or a throwaway line. That's to "humble" the Black man that bought his sister a honeymoon package on The Blackstar Line - a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey, the organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.
Rolin & Co. have fans clamouring for the 'knocking down a peg or two" of the Black man who loved his 'churchy', mentally ill brother enough to not institutionalize him and with him, give us a taste of our much beloved Nicholas, or Hines Brothers.
"With Episode 1, titled āIn Throes of Increasing Wonderā¦,ā the show not only crafts one of the best pilots in the history of television, it also showcases Black culture in New Orleans, and how essential this is to Louisā life. Itās clear here, from Louis being called a slur by a fellow businessman to the familial joy seen at his sister Graceās (Kalyne Coleman) wedding, that Blackness is not only integral to Louisā story, but the story this adaptation is trying to tell." Paste Magazine
This is about the unmaking of Louis de Pointe du Lac and Claudia.
"I always thought that Louis slightly cribbed James Baldwin's speech patterns, and that's what he took with him to Dubai. It's an affectation. But then as he comes back to himself, his real, true New Orleans accent creeps back in." Jacob Anderson, Backstage
Claudia, Episode 6:
"took your Black queen and ran off with him across the ocean..."
Young militants referred to Baldwin, unsmilingly, as Martin Luther Queen. Henry Louis Gates, The Fire Last Time
The use of another Black voice to say these things is certainly interesting, but unsurprising. (I don't need to get into everything she said for obvious reasons - if you're fine with everything she said, hooray for you, we're here for what I think.)
"The one good thing in my bleakā¦ [sobbing] Black life, and I donāt know where she is!"
I won't argue the difficulty of living as a Black woman with people who aren't either one, or agree with the sentiment above. I will point out that in her time in NOLA, following her transformation, Claudia did live better materially than most Black girls and women. The most notable exceptions that we know through the show being Grace and Florence - who did not live 'bleak Black lives'.
Claudia as a vampire had better chances at survival than most Black girls and women, even in her worst circumstances. But that line, isn't about any of that - that line is to undo every moment in S1 where Claudia did have moments of happiness. To undo moments in S2 where she found acceptance and what she wanted.
"Bleak Black Life", indeed. Catchy isn't it? Like the antithesis of 'Black Lives Matter'. AND IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE US - LOOK AT DEE PHARMA. A COCAINE WHORE BUCKET. (they like buckets, these white writers - buckets of chicken, whore buckets...)
AND SPEAKING OF HYPERSEXUALIZATIONā¦
"Some joy I know, knowinā is how good I humiliated you in New Orleans, how I ginned up the train for the slave here.
'Lestat said heād do worse than rape me, Daddy Lou.'
Worked good, didnāt it?"
Because the only solution to having an audience thinking their white lead was capable of victimizing these Blacks that the writers didn't want in the first place, is to show that a lynched, Black female (I use this word deliberately) is unworthy of your belief with regards to him.
The same white guy that killed poor Miss Lilly for the crime of being a poor substitute for Louis. That dropped Louis from miles above earth. That raged at Claudia like she was a rival lover instead of an inconvenient daughter.
This guy can't be held up as the great focus for the Great Conversion to S3 and a whiter audience and whiter tastes without the undoing and unmaking and unmanning of the lead/s of S1&S2.
Come on now, this was a bit heavy handed (from Merrick's summoning):
"Son of Ham," - That's real cute, paired with Claudia calling him a slave multiple times.
I don't need to get hit repeatedly on the head with a hammer to get the message Rolin & Co are sending. I'm out - but I just wanted to be clear about the why.
many women are excited to get old and weird, but i have great news that it's fully possible to become weird now, before you get old. just imagine the heights of weirdness you will be able to reach in fifty years if you get started now. that's what I think
Can I askā Iāve not seen the most recent episode and am not the most educated on how anti blackness presents itself in this season (I can guess but I just want to make sure) what has happened this ep and in the past eps that make it especially bad? I donāt like this season at all fr I think what theyāre doing with Louis and Regina is a bit fucked and the whole thing with lestats mom is weird but Iām definitely missing something and would love to be educated on it if youāre okay with doing so
The thing you have to know is that if in the first two seasons you have a show which used the Gothic genre to tell a story of abuse and racism- where there were two black characters who were driven to murder the white patriarch of the house to flee from this abuse, and then comes s3 where basically everything from the previous seasons gets retconned or remains unaddressed or are made into punchlines, then there's something insidious that's going on. If anti blackness is the ha-ha joke, then I think the writing on the wall is pretty clear atp.
I will give you an example: the Salamander character wears a "Hip Hop sucks" shirt in the previous episode and then the actor ( i think) makes a jokey post about how so and so is trying to get him canceled. So these people who are involved in the project know the weight there is to these words-> what it sounds like to have used a costume which dismisses an entire genre of black music, and what did they do with the shirt? what was the intention behind using it? Did this lead anywhere? Was it to have a conversation about a white rock band ( rock and roll, a genre which grew out of African american music ) being hypocrites, who in one breathe both takes advantage of and dismisses Black art/music? I don't know because there was nothing. In a season so obsessed with telling instead of showing mind you.
A TV show doesn't have to have a meta commentary about everything sure, but the thing is in the previous seasons as we followed Louis and Claudia, their blackness in itself was a very present thing in the show because as the story unfolded we saw how the world reacts to them as both humans and as vampires. Using the Gothic to explore violence etc; so how is it that when this season rolls in, and as showrunner you tell the viewers not to worry, the previous lead black character is still a co-lead in the show and then proceed the entire show having this character being mocked and insulted- "Louisiana fried chicken"/ "cancerous jackal"/"big bad wolf"/ "whore Thomas Pitty" with no pushback from the narrative itself? On top of that it is LDPDL who is doing the apologizing in every episode. Lestat has the blood of Akasha in him, so his anger gets the best of him it is said and sure there was Louis saying "no that's not it, it is what you do with the blood..." But this is also the episode where you have Ghost!Claudia hurling slurs at Louis. Throughout the season everyone is taking a dunk at Louis and now you have a all white writer's room making Ghost!Claudia hurl slurs at Louis and saying she actually likes the white man better than you ( this white man being the co-lyncher with Armand). Louclaudia was the heart of the show in the previous seasons; whatever frustration despair and even hate Claudia may have had for Louis, it was always true that the undercurrent of it were love. This is the girl who said to her Papa Lou "his love is a small box he keeps you in, don't let him"/ she pleaded with him that there are other vampires who will be worthy of his love. She pleaded with uncle Les to hurt her instead of Louis and now her ghost is saying Louis is not even her blood? Lestat is her maker??? The black child saying the white patriarch is her own blood, more so than LDPDL? As if during her turning, Madeline wasn't trying to give courage to Claudia by saying don't worry about the blood, its the blood that made you it can't be bad, because that's how torn Claudia was.
There are metas which say that the reason Ghost!Claudia tore into Louis so harshly was because she was angry that after everything Louis still chose Lestat, who participated in her lynching and had made life hell in Rue Royale, but after a whole season of Louis being the punching bag it just feels needlessly cruel. Claudia is not a real person, she doesn't exist in this world, she is a fictional character and an all white writer's room chose that she is to hurl slurs at Louis to show her anger. We also find out Louis was sexually abused as a child in one sentence and again that's just there, Claudia's rape was used to draw parallels to Lestat's traumatic turning. If in s1 while being an antagonist in Louis/Claudia's life Lestat still seemed like a full character with the weight of the un- life haunting him, why is everything about Lestat this season? Even a black character's trauma? What will you call this except for anti blackness?
im honestly still not over this like a room full of nonblack people wrote claudia calling louis nappy-headed and telling him that etched in his ribs was the proof that he's a slave. something so horrifically anti-black because of its implications that louis being a slave is genetic and interwoven with his dna. that's literally a white supremacist talking point. they had claudia, a black person with a white lover, mock louis for being a black person with a white lover, and say that lestat was her actual blood relative after rejecting his blood in s2, acknowledging that it wasn't good enough for madeleine.
rolin truly said this and believed it to be true, and that should be enough for everyone to know what kind of person he is:
they had claudia refer to her life as not only bleak, but specifically bleak and black. a character who was never ashamed of her blackness. they had her say that she hates louis more than her rapist, abuser, and the people that orchestrated her lynching and burned her lover alive. they completely destroyed her character and killed two birds with one stone, butchering who claudia always was/how she saw louis and lestat, and throwing in more insults and hate at louis while mostly ignoring lestat.
and making it so that claudia is suffering endlessly, even in death, felt like another purposeful story choice. not to make claudia's character even more heartbreaking, either. it was pointless no matter how you look at it. this just felt like yet another way to torture a black character, and a black character that has been repeatedly exploited all season for everyone else's feelings. furthermore, summoning claudia had no effect on louis and lestat at all, as they were immediately over it by the next scene.
none of the heavy storybeats can have any emotional impact because both us and the characters are never given time to absorb them. they're just checking boxes with these heavy moments and moving onto the next scene. and all of this is, again, so we can absolve lestat of his wrongdoings and ensure no blame falls on him. his trauma is the only important thing in the show and the only thing worth discussing/unpacking. it's just antiblack, misogynistic writing again and again every week and rehashing it feels pointless but i can't help myself.
aside from the blatant racism and misogynoir, i also get the impression that these writers are just trying to get their quoteable, hashtag-able, gif-worthy scenes each episode. who needs a cohesive plot when you can have lestat say "serving cunt has its consequences" or give the viewers an iconic shot of their favorite ship that feels entirely unearnedāone of my examples of this being the fact that devils minion feels like they just put together a bunch of shots that they thought people would love, without actually telling a story with these two characters. everything we learn of their history and relationship is given to us through exposition. and because assad is such a fantastic actor, he's making these scraps into something interesting.
the showrunners are no longer pretending to be subtle with their sloppy writing, poor pacing, and hatred towards louis and claudia. they're just writing the racism right into the script and think that, because a black character says it, they're free from all criticism. and a majority of their nonblack fans are jumping to defend them by saying that claudia's rage is justified and if you claim otherwise (even if you're not saying that) then you can't accept black characters being cruel and/or evil. which isn't true at all.
claudia's rage is entirely justified, her berating the two people that were supposed to love her and put her first but instead used both her life and death for their own gain is not the issue here. she could've been as cruel as she wantedābut having her say a slew of horribly racist things to louis and direct most of her ire towards him as opposed to lestat or the both of them equally was nothing more than these antiblack writers once again degrading louis for their own enjoyment because they hate his character and know they can get away with dragging him through the mud. especially if they hide behind another black character.
even the decapitation at the end felt like a quick moment of shock to the viewer that turned comical immediately after. the abysmal pacing of this show makes it so that loustat being beheaded has no actual weight because we know they're fine and we're given no opportunity to sit with this moment. there are no stakes and there was no real buildup to it. nor to armand and daniel coming up with this plan and suddenly working together the way they are. in fact after the dust settled, id say the scene was borderline cartoonishly evil.
these writers will never face the backlash that they deserve for this joke of a season. not only does this show not deserve to be renewed, but i sincerely hope that jacob, delainey and assad are (aside from being able to talk about it privately in some way) one day able to publicly talk about the racist/misogynistic bullshit that they had to endure this season all in the name of propping up a white character and furthering a bullshit narrative.
Making Claudia into a one dimensional lying angry black woman stereotype when she had a cold righteous rage that simmered through all of her injustice is just so disheartening. Her complex relationship with her parental figures was so nuanced where love, respect, disappointment, and resentment merged into a special highlight of the show. A strange rant where she's inexplicably racist and hateful to Louis over the man she compared to a literal tyrant slave owner feels so off. She has the right to be angry at them both but the implication that Louis was the worst person to her serves nothing other than the writer's agenda to discount the beauty of s1 and 2.
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