★ is ealaín dubh í ★

22 | 🇮🇪 | following wherever my autism leads me

[lilacs-in-the-wind]

The showrunners chose to make Louis and Claudia black and experience life in the Jim crow era. They chose to do the full race swap in season 1, not just making the characters but also the story black. They chose to racialize the violence that both Louis and Claudia face throughout the first season. No one was forcing their hands and they got praised for the stuff they did in the first two seasons, for bringing in the added nuance of systemic racism. So why should I as an audience member of colour give them any grace when they choose to write dialogues containing numerous racialized and gendered micro aggressions not just towards Louis or Claudia but also minor characters like Dee or Lemuel who weren't necessarily supposed to exist as they are (black) in the show?? Why is Daniel (a white man) who is supposed to be a Pulitzer prize winning investigative journalist who was lecturing Louis on his own story about the racism he faced referring to him as a "bucket of Louisiana fried chicken"?? Why is Armand textually belittled for being a CSA victim while Lestat is endlessly provided with grace and understanding in the text of the show for his victimhood?? Who thought it was alright to adapt a scene from the books involving white characters talking about parental betrayal and insert racially charged dialogues (that too old school racist shit not even the n word) when it was unnecessary to preserve the nuance of the scene?? Why is this show denying the racialized nature of domestic violence that they chose to portray in S1 ??? (Lestat getting mildly annoyed that Louis didn't enjoy going to the operas in nola when he had to act as Lestat's servant to be allowed in tf??) Why is Gabriella like that??

I cannot help but look at this season of the show as a sign of the times tbh. IWTV aired during a very liberal era of entertainment and now that fascism and white supremacy is on the rise everywhere white entertainers have become comfortable enough to fall back into old habits. Never thought this show in particular would have this problem when I watched the first season but it is what it is I guess

[onwolves]

this is how tvl meta sounds like to me now

[dykecinema]

Okay saying one more thing and then I'm done I guess but it's absolutely insane to me how much Lestat has been like coddled for lack of a better word this season. Literally so much of the writing this season is up his ass and is sooo focused on making HIM the victim(which don't get me wrong he is a victim in some senses) to the point where it's bastardizing characters and retconning plot points all in service to him. Gabrielle completely butchered and turned into some hypersexual cartoonish villain because we need to know at every turn this is a horrible evil woman that abuses poor baby Lestat. Barely any time developed on her own abuse she suffered. We can't see any exploration of her gender. No nuance - even though Lestat is an abuser that was given plenty of nuance. Louis constantly apologizing to Lestat - his abuser- because yeah Lestat can abuse Louis and it's fine but god forbid Louis does one thing wrong by Lestat. Armand apologizing to Lestat while also be turned on by his naked form because remember this is the Lestat show we have to be focused all on Lestat being a rock sex god that has done no wrong. Oh Armand was abused too? Well it doesn't matter because he did wrong by Lestat. And when they summon Claudia's ghost most of her ire is directed towards Louis not the man that yknow abused her and Louis for years. And she says she liked Lestat more than Louis despite all evidence in the previous seasons to the contrary because this is the Lestat show he has to be the number one specialist boy.

And you can't even use "this is Lestat's pov" as a defense really because the pov storytelling has been completely messy this season switching back and forth between Daniel's doc and The Failures records and sometimes it seems like none of these are being used.

We do get a little push back from Daniel but it now seems moot bc Daniel has also been turned into a cartoonishly evil villain (legit what are his motivations for turning on lestat and louis like that)

Obviously this all sucks from a racism and misogyny viewpoint, but it also sucks from a storytelling viewpoint. Like what is the fun of sucking out the nuance of everyone all in favor of one character. There was soooo much potential to delve into the cycle of abuse - and we do get a little bit of that I will give them that- but not nearly as much as I'd hoped.

Okay sorry I needed to get that off my chest. I don't want to be a negative Nancy but it gets to a point...

[geestdrift]

it's genuinely baffling to me that some critics and screeners claimed this season gets better later on because it has literally gotten worse with each episode. it's almost insulting. i feel like i'm watching a car crash happen in slow motion

[name-of-the-radio]

letting the tale seduce you was for iwtv seasons 1 and 2, i am reporting the tale for sexual harassment

[letpeoplecritiquethings]

The Vampire Lestat

[blazing-butterfly-inactive]

Normally I just ignore yaoi from fandoms I'm not in but when Spirk crosses my dash I always take a moment to appreciate it out of respect for our founding fujoshis

[fascinationstreetmp3]

can't take the argument that the things claudia said to louis about being a slave were "book accurate" so there's no room to get upset at them seriously because go ahead and take a look at this entire season and make a checklist of the things that are 100% accurate to the books and you will come back with a very short list. so why is this the one thing the writers apparently couldn't approach with any nuance and adjust for the show to keep in line with the adaptional changes and choices they've already made wrt louis and claudia's race and relationship with each other

[userarmand]

i'm always saying this

[sapphicides]

quite genuinely i don’t even think i’m going to be regarding this season as canon for my own mental sanity. half of the stupid bullshit writing choices they made don’t even make logical sense with the canon they’ve established anyways and that’s even with the whole “odyssey of recollection” through line at play. lestat is mischaracterized and louis is mischaracterized and armand is mischaracterized and CLAUDIA IS SOOOOOO FUCKING MISCHARACTERIZED i actually can’t stand it. after the season ends i won’t even be posting about it anymore i’m gonna just pretend it never happened

[excretal]

lestat is so boring and so flat now that shitting on him is not even fun anymore so i guess they succeeded fuck it character annihilation for everybody #CONGRATS #MAKEROFTHEYEAR

[ladypaperwriterson]

Me going down on a 100 year slumber after watching that traumatic shitshow last night:

[sp-by-april]

the utter and absolute downfall of this show should be studied.

also can we point out how the writer condescendingly telling the audience to watch the episodes 2-3 times to understand it is just trying to up the streams lol.

Like sorry dudes I only had to watch episodes in S1-2 once to understand their brilliance, I rewatched them multiple times because they were excellent television.

If your original audience doesn't understand your intentions in only the most recent installment, that's a storytelling failure, not a media literacy one.

[glitteringpoet1685]

And people spent so much time calling people who were seeing the patterns in the marketing and the early episodes doomposters and haters for having eyes and pattern recognition, but they've genuinely gone lower than any of my worst fears for this season. Like I could not have imagined that they would have the audacity to do this shit 2 months ago.

[letpeoplecritiquethings]

Also, re Claudia saying she lied about Lestat’s rape comments — if we take that to be true, what are the writers saying actually happened? Claudia got on the train, tried to leave, and….? What? Like genuinely, why did she come back?

Did Lestat show up and threaten her DIFFERENTLY? Or did he not show up on the train at all? Are they saying her Evil Scheming Black Girl Mastermind plan was in action from way back when she was asking Louis to leave with her, and her whole departure and return was just a series of manipulative theatrics to poison Louis against Lestat? And this was her goal not because she hated Lestat but because she actually (checks notes) apparently preferred him, but found Louis easier to manipulate…??

Like… even if all this retconning wasn’t rooted in antiblackness and misogynoir (which it is), it’s also just terrible/absurd writing like where’s the logic ???? 🫠

[veryveryvomit]

Sooooo claudia specifically wrote parts of her diaries as tools to sway louis one way or another but also hates that he reads her diaries?

[sumquiasum]

Also idk bringing up the opera where Louis had to pretend to be Lestat's valet to sit with him and then Claudia calls him a slave multiple times?? Like what are we even saying here.