★ is ealaín dubh í ★

22 | 🇮🇪 | following wherever my autism leads me

[roman-roy-apologist]

remember when daniel used to be an interesting character with wants and needs and regrets and fears? yeah me neither

[heartedrivalry]

the difference between louis' unreliable narration and lestats is that with louis we had a framing device that was anchored in reality and daniel was constantly asking clarifying questions or finding holes in the story and we got to see louis in present day go through journey of examining how he remembers his past and what hes choosing to ignore or gloss over. the show never made you forget that this was a story being told from a limited and bias perspective. but in tvl, we lose that framing device. we are technically listening to lestats recount of the events of tvl on the "failures" recording but there is absolutely nothing besides the occasional bit of narration and daniels "youre listening to the failures" twice an episode to remind us. we have not revisited the auction. they promotional material and interviews really gave the impression that this was gonna utilize the format of a documentary/concert film much more heavily than it did. it drops that approach right away and settles on only the occasional reminder that everything were seeing is technically from lestats pov. but we also see things that happen way out perspective of lestat. how does lestat know about the conversations between armand and daniel? how does lestat know that louis and regina went on a pedal boat at night? how does lestat know about the conversation that larry had with that fan? in iwtv, we were deliberately tied to louis' perspective and whenever the story reached beyond that it because we had things like claudias diaries or armand chiming in or daniels recording from that night in '73. and those perspectives raised questions about how they lined up with louis' story and who was telling the real truth. but in tvl everything that is technically lestats retelling is just framed as the objective, present day reality. nothing in the show is asking me to question if what im seeing is the full truth or something tainted by lestats feelings. the closest we get is that interview where he talks about nicky BUT even then that is an interview told WITHIN lestats retelling of events. i feel like they had such an obvious yet clever route to go with adapting tvl and completely tossed it out the window.

[glitteringpoet1685]

why do you think tvl has such high episode ratings? like i can't just wrap my head around it. episode 6 is currently rated 9.4 on imdb??? the average is 8.6 the same as season 2. nobody can seriously tell me this is anywhere near season 2 quality

Yeah the fact that this season has more positive reviews both critically and from the audience is baffling to say the least. I'm not knowledgeable enough on the entertainment industry to say why critics loved this season (I'm linking a post by @ohwolfling that explains it much better than I could). From an audience perspective I think there's multiple factors. Firstly I think that there will be more negative reception once the season finishes, there's only around 700 reviews for the most recent episode compared to 2-4k for the first 2 seasons, plus the fact that I have a lot of people come onto my posts and say they were reserving judgement until the whole season was out but I think ep6 has shifted a lot of people's opinions. The audience reviews seem to be extremely polarized too, people either think it's amazing or horrible.

I also think part of the reason why there is so much backlash to the backlash against tvl is that fandoms are extremely vigilant because of queer shows being cancelled (which is a fair fear to have). Criticism isn't just criticism to queer fandoms, it's an existential threat to a show.

But I'm not claiming that everyone who reviewed this show positively is lying or withholding their issues, obviously there is still tons of genuine praise for this season, and that takes me to my worst fear with these reviews is that it teaches amc that betraying your core audience works. The first 2 seasons built a loyal fanbase of queer and non-white fans with how it explored race and sexuality, which has now mostly been abandoned by tvl. I fear that the success of this season has shown that it's more profitable to pander to a more general audience, the kind who view depicting gratuitous incestuous sexual abuse as more acceptable than an actual exploration of complicated queer relationships or characters whose race is an integral part of the story. We can argue all we want about the whys, but at the end of the day tvl only pays lip service to these explorations of queerness and race, especially compared to s1, or worse makes actively homophobic, transphobic and racist writing decisions.

💬 0  🔁 16  ❤️ 39 · I want you to know that it's not normal to have editorial pieces scolding an audience for not enjoying a season of televi

[holy--milk]

no, but seriously, rolin talking about purposefully "painting themselves into corners" and aiming for plot developments that even book fans wouldn't see coming... the absolute scariest fucking thing a showrunner could utter in this day and age.

we're entering vampire riverdale era.

[feedingicetothedog]

if the season had prioritized a social commentary about class and the impact of the french revolution, the head chopping scene in this episode would've carried more thematic weight

[snequanimity]

idk if non tvc readers know all of this but marius & lestat were both chosen to be turned bc they were tall well built blue eyed blonds. it wasnt just some sex thing it was eugenics. marius was selected by gaulish druids (in the south of france but lets skip over that gracefully.) yes book gab proposes a mass killing of humans and vamp monarchy, predicts it even, then fucks off into the 'wilderness' (africa) to do whatever tf she wants to the humans she finds there. akasha came from west asia and brought 'civilised' values to the africans who were supposedly all running around practising cannibalism apparently (6000 yrs ago? really?? jesus wept). when lestat rocks up to the island where marius keeps akasha they both instantly show him huge favour. when the vampires start saying they need a leader lestat is automatically the top pick. marius becomes prime minister bc hes so 'moral'. these two aryan princelings rule and feed the others with 'criminals' from the global south trafficked via corrupt politicians and kept in a concentration camp in the cellars of lestats luxuriantly restored château.

[rooksilver]

anyone remember when the show was good

[androidtrashfire]

I'm actually okay at this point if Armand does not show up meaningfully in any way in the finale.

Actually at this point, I think that's preferable.

Let's just ignore everything I said about translating TVL from book to screen with care since he's the most intentionally racialized character. Let's also ignore how much I was looking forward to him showing up this season in relation to Lestat's backstory. *glances over at the ruin that's left of Louis' and Claudia's characters* You know what? Great decision actually. To give Armand an average 30 secs of inexplicable screentime per episode. Let's keep that energy going into the finale. Let's just have him be one-dimensionally evil and moustache-twirling for reasons that are underexplained. It's fine. It's fine actually. Let him chop Louis's leg off for no clear reason next episode maybe. And then have him admit it was him who burned down Notre Dame that one time. Also announce that his next plan is to steal the Declaration of Independence. Then boom, scene over. Armand exits stage left. Quickly move us all on to whatever bullshit Lestat is up to in the finale.

Yeah. Let's keep that energy and not delve into, like, reasons, or exposition, or attempts to rewrite his character in any way. For the love of God, let's just... not do any of that.

I'm sorry writing/creative team, you were right, I was wrong. You're the geniuses, don't listen to me. Or anyone else online, okay? Let's just stay the course here.

Let's keep on doing what we're doing now please

[snequanimity]

ah yes the book where lestat was definitely present and claudia and louis were definitely both black and claudia definitely used a lot of racist language and the whole thing was definitely lestats idea because he was absolutely there and claudia definitely said she liked him better and made up lies about him. right.

havent read the piece yet but this is not encouraging me to give it the time of day

[holy--milk]

"straight from the books" may be becoming my biggest pet peeve rn, because books aren't simply strings of random events that just Happen for no particular reason and with no effect on anything. just because a specific scene was lifted from a book means NOTHING in terms of whether it was actually a good or a bad writing choice.

does it actually fit in with the rest of the narrative of the adaptation? does it move the story forward? does it mean anything for the characters involved? is it ultimately well-written? THAT's what makes a good book scene adaptation, not just the fact that it came "straight from the books".

[dedicatedfolloweroffashion]

There’s so much that has been said on the symbolism of his clothes being too big for him which is so right and very well put but I just want to add that it looks like he’s just started year 7 and his mum has bought him a blazer three sizes too big that he’ll “grow into”

[himejoshevik]

It’s just really striking how much louis is expected to be so so kind and generous with his heart with his body with his time with his story. and his EMOTIONAL DISTANCE is always treated like an equal offense as cheating or gaslighting or exploitation as if any amount of coldness merits being physically beaten or coerced into sex like jesus christ

[raisinchallah]

retconning lestat threatening claudia on the train is like well this really does feel like the point of no return that any plot point that makes lestat look bad can just be washed away if they so choose and the pattern of just completely undermining entire defining character arcs and relationships that were the bedrock of previous seasons for nothing let alone in substance and content that we are now saying claudia was lying about her abuse to manipulate louis who she didnt even love like its so ghastly the racism and misogyny of this season are completely out of control and god the more i think about it the more deranged it makes me like this is what we are doing to the show

[ursafuriosa]

[raisinchallah]

you know i was getting so sad about how they dont even care about lesmand in the show and have done unspeakable evils to their dynamic but then i remembered we still do have the musical adapting the most iconic scene ever when lestats like why did u keep me in ur torture dungeon to ruin my life and armands like because i can and also your ex wants me more than he ever wanted you and then lestats like ok im brining up the marius trauma and they also kiss so like we do have that

[raisinchallah]

anyone remember armand.. remember how we used to run

[snequanimity]

we just dont understand gothic romance, its actually very gothic to (consults notes) leak a sex tape online

[sarahstellium]

Assad Zaman getting less than 12 minutes of screen time in episodes 1-6 but having to do an exhausting amount of press. 😑 He’s at every panel interview. Every TVL podcast. In every episode of After Dark. Constantly asked the most mundane questions about Armand’s character…while not even being able to explore it this season. Can Hollywood please start casting this talented beautiful man!!??!! He’s carried every scene he is in and I know so many of us are dissatisfied with his screen time this season. 🥲