James Vahl

[persephoning]

Rolin Jones likes to throw out a big traumatic idea or event in a script then run away from it as fast as he can without actually examining the ramifications of what that action does to the characters he’s thrown it at or what needs to happen to actually create the thing to be thrown and then he seems to think that’s sufficient to count as deep, thoughtful writing/show direction.

[yusiyomogi]

and when i say that idea of "love" became the macguffin in tvl, i'm not only talking about louis+lestat or louis+armand scenes. at the very least with these two relationships we had something complex going on in the first two seasons, so we're invested in what they feel towards each other even if it's mostly said and not shown now. which obviously doesn't change the horrendous victim-blaming towards louis, just that we have some stakes there.

the most obvious and the most fucked-up example of it is actually gabriella+lestat. i think all the weakest parts of this framing are revealed clearly in this relationship. because lestat realizing that gabriella is a monster because she didn't love him as much as he thought? instead of processing this whole thing and maybe starting to realize that love doesn't matter here at all, that he was sexually and emotionally abused for 200 years by his mother despite her love?? like, what is this shit.

and i don't know whose idea it was, but i think it needs to be called out. by adopting this framing, tvl undermines itself: it becomes a victim-blaming mess (lestat and armand towards louis) and the breeding ground for one-dimensional characters and shallow writing (gabriella). it's bad. it's alienating.

[tendeadrabbits]

not only does “lestat doesn’t wanna talk about it” not work when the entire show relies on your character being willing to talk about their life it works even less when you remember that lestat is recording all of this shit WAAAYY into the future.. like he’s gone thru all the events of s3 plus presumably the events of s4 and he’s still unwilling to talk about nicki or armand or his time with louis when he’s reflecting on what led him to the almost-destruction of the fucking planet and knowing he’s saying all this in retrospect makes the unreliable narrator thing even worse because you’re telling me he’s woken up akasha and damn near destroyed the planet but still calls louis a whore and a cancerous jackal and a pimp who slit his throat in his narration with no sense or remorse or hesitation or regret? cause this is his future self telling all of this to us and we don’t get any indication he regrets speaking of him or thinking of him that way. and it makes the seance scene even worse!!! either lestat is still lying THIS FAR INTO THE FUTURE and saying claudia tore into louis calling him a nappy headed slave but praised lestat for getting his revenge on them or they completely butchered claudia’s character and her relationships with her caregivers for the sake of knocking louis down and uplifting lestat. again. like this season is so incoherent it’s crazy

[bifauxnenarmand]

armand looked so beautiful torturing lestat’s decapitated head as revenge for big boss and never telling him marius was alive 💕 I especially loved the references to the lines from the book “a century I waited and you did not want me” and “does anyone else know the size of your soul?” and when lestat realized how armand being a sex slave since he was a child shaped the way he is after armand gave him his memories as a human like he did in the book (that flashback where we find out marius was the first person who told him rest? AUGHH) and then finally admitted to himself how similar they are, how he loves armand as much as he hates him, and coming to terms with how just like armand he’s hurt the people he loved, and the parallels between gabistat and marimand… PEAK LESMAND EPISODE

I’m so glad tough cookie got to escape though! I felt so bad for her tbh

and armand’s style and half bun!! ugh us armandheads and lesmand enjoyers ate so good this episode

[bifauxnenarmand]

ohhh so that’s why the official account captioned a snippet of this scene with this quote!

[bicreature]

This quote from Rolin is so revealing like you can tell that he's seen the reactions and is seething. He really thinks he's made some masterpiece and contemptuously thinks fans are just too stupid to get it. The audacity to say that a decade from now this will be people's favorite season and at the same time put down the previous seasons and their writers. Condescendingly calling s1 and s2 'lovable and cuddly' (?!) when they dealt so much with abuse and racism. He's so clearly deeply resentful and insecure that the previous seasons and the characters they centered are so loved, and the season he's been wanting to do for years and most closely matches his vision miserably failed to reach those heights. He's completely unable to take criticism and is only doubling down on what he thinks is his brilliant plan

[vorreitenertiqui]

*He put down IWTV's previous seasons whose writers he ghosted post-S2 btw.

Also again, I still can't find the S2(?) interview, but Rolin called Louis 'Cuddles The Vampire'. Rolin kept calling him that according to Jacob iirc.

[mannequinswithkillappeal]

god this fucking sucks (please go read the full thing at the above link)

and a source for the nickname, though i can't find jacob talking about it rn [x]

[vide0n4sty]

and its not as serious as the egregious antiblack racism, but the sheer misogyny porn of gabriella taking lestat to the witch burning, focusing on ropes around necks, children being burnt alive, in an effort to get him to leave the village and then framing his inability to leave as HIS MOTHER believing he's a failure is just sooooo

in the book, lestat DOES try to leave by joining the monastery, but is dragged back home by his abusive brothers and is violently reprimended by the marquis, reminding the reader of just how much abuse lestat faces FROM MEN. and when he does SUCCESSFULLY leave, it's with nicki so the two of them can be in a relationship together in paris. it's this touching queer reclamation of the abused self, asserted even further by gabrielle financing their moving to paris.

in a season so overtly misogynistic and queerphobic, they removed the focus of nicki and lestat's relationship to just make lestat appear even more helpless, gabriella more abusive, their relationship even more questionable. genuinely how did we go from "be all the beautiful things you are without apology" to not even having one visible mlm kiss. fucked.

[submersero]

[holewithoutorgans]

After I posted about Louis being a victim of incest and csa, several people reached out to ask when that happened and it actually made me pretty angry (not at them but at how the show has handled it).

It's not even that I think Louis flippantly bringing up his own molestation is out of character for him (he always struggles with his own victimhood). I actually think it adds EXTREMELY relevant info about a character that has struggled with internalized homophobia and often treats his own body as a transactional pawn in his relationships. The "he gave me a dollar" is such a specific detail to add.

It ALMOST makes me think the writers are competent. It ALMOST works. But the framing of it being primarily about Lestat understanding his relationship with Gabrielle kills it. Just like Claudia's diary entry reading in ep3, Louis's molestation comment doesn't get the narrative weight it deserves. Lestat's emotional state is the primary focus.

The trauma of the characters is treated with a lot more dignity in prior seasons. Lestat's s1 dinner monologue and Armand's lourve monologue are treated respectfully by the narrative. Empathizing with their emotions is the primary purpose of the scene. Idk :/

Thats why people not even catching that he said it makes sense but also drives me crazy. Its a TOTAL FAILURE OF STORYTELLING ON SEVERAL LEVELS😭

[holewithoutorgans]

"I planted the fred steins to fuck with your head" He would not fucking say that! Thats not why he did it! I've always preferred the ambiguity of it never being confirmed but whatever. Does no one remember the "you think I want to be hyped up, coddled, lied to" conversation??😭. It was a stupid and misguided attempt to massage Louis's bruised ego.

The foundation of post paris loumand is that they both want the relationship to work! They NEED it to work actually. Desperately. They dont think they can survive with out each other.

Armand wanting to intentionally push Louis into a breakdown makes no fucking sense. How does that help his goal of keeping the relationship together?????????? Everytime Louis has an emotional outburst doing the interview, Armand is trying to shut it down. This season just butchers Armand, fuck.

[cloudabserk]

it’s crazy cuz you know what would have helped this season tremendously. PUTTING LESTAT AND ARMAND TOGETHER TO HAVE AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION. you know. like they did in the FAMOUS BOOK THE VAMPIRE LESTAT.

[cloudabserk]

“you really can’t see armand doing this stuff?” i mean i kind of can. in a better show maybe it even could have been good. in this case however it was just done very poorly and stupidly. that was never going to feel earned after 2 nothingburger armand scenes all season

[awhitetulip1997]

So, Gabriella was just a sexual abuser without any interiority this season after 6 episodes. These writers have made one of the few prominent female characters in this show and books a one dimensional misogynist caricature after 6 hours of TV. She has had more time spent in incestuous sex scenes than anything to better flesh out her character. I was willing to wait for more of the episodes to come out before I cemented my opinion on her character but I doubt she will get some amazing character development when they are building up to the concert for the finale.

Also side note what’s with the costuming for her character, I feel like narratively the story has been ongoing for at least 2 years and she’s been in the exact same outfit.

[metathesisblog]

the showrunners and producers knew this season wasnt gonna be received well... its why u have rolin saying "if you hate this season, you hate sam/daniel"... trying to shift the blame onto sam when the actors/performances are the only quality the show has left and most of the criticism for this season has been for its racism, misogyny and poor writing choices. its why u have rolin and mark campaigning for s4.. basically begging for it, trying to guilt trip us into it! "if they give us season 4" "this cant be the end for these characters, for louis, lestat, armand and daniel" well actually i hope it is, bc i never want to see a repeat of this again! it was bad enough having to suffer through this season of violent antiblack racism, victim blaming darvo shit and character assassination. not to mention them dangling things that SHOULD have been in this season for a renewal. "if we get renewed, we'll show daniels turning" (anyways its been said the turning was non consensual so just another scene to make armand more terrible) "if we get renewed, we'll explore more of lestat as a character. its just he has this armor up and thats why nothing happened" gee its almost like thats ur job as a writer to find ways to push lestat so he DOES open up. like u HAD ur chance to explore lestat's character, u HAD ur chance to continue this story and u blew it.

[lesbiansidney]

and we only got the hate side of lesmand's love/hate relationship too. not only that, we only got lestat's hate for armand, none of armand's hatred for him. not only That, but what has show armand even done to make lestat hate him? he didn't drink from him nonconsensually, he didn't cut nicki's hands off, he didn't torture lestat, he didn't force him to participate in the trial, he didn't push lestat out of the window. turns out the reason "big boss" didnt actually call out armand for anything he did is that he never did anything to lestat. lestat just hated him for...being traumatised, i guess. and for this version of armand apparently the writers deem that enough.

[yaoiblackmold]

Adapting The Vampire Lestat book yet Armand is almost nowhere to be seen in the show despite having an entire chapter dedicated to him and being mentioned 100+ times

[yaoiblackmold]

Rolin Jones is such a fake book reader

(Source)

[jmsvhl]

"be patient, it's a two-part story, obviously you need to see tvl season 2 to understand that tvl season 1 is actually amazing" considering how well it worked for me this season when y'all told me to wait for the finale, my tvl season 2 predictions:

It's going to be revealed that Lestat was raped by Armand. He was also raped by his father, his brothers and their wifes (that's why he killed them all), the priests in the monastery (that's why he killed the priests in iwtv s1), the actors in a traveling wagon (that's why his sense of wonder was abandoned there), his dog (that's why he sent it to be torn apart by the wolves), the wolves (that's why he doesn't want to talk about it), Antoinette Brown (Lestat would never cheat on Louis), Claudia (that's what really happened on that train) and Larry (that's why Lestat's so mean to him). AND he will be raped by Akasha in every episode of the season (you don't get it, he's the most victim to ever victim!!)

At some point we'll see ghosts of Grace and Florence. They're going to tell Louis they've always liked Lestat more than him.

Daniel suddenly remembers he's a CSA victim too (you don't get it, every main character of the show needs to be a CSA victim)

Armand's not pure evil enough, so in this season he's going to torture kittens and burn down orphanages for fun.

DM fans are in for a treat!! Daniel and Armand are going to share 5 minutes of screentime (it's going to be half of Armand's screentime and 5/7 of Daniel's). Daniel will call himself a nepo fledgling and Armand's going to talk to him about their tag on ao3.

Louis's going to have a heartbreaking arc of coming to terms with him being the abusive one in his relationships with Lestat and Armand. The only phrases he will use this season are "I'm sorry" and "I love Lestat." Because, obviously, nothing about him matters except for this.

Loustat will suddenly remember about Claudia's death again and decide to honour her by burying her yellow dress. Then they'll get so sad about her they'll fuck on her grave.

Akasha is going to be the most horrible and irredeemable villain of this show: she's going to support women's rights. Upon hearing this, Lestat will faint, Louis will weep, and Armand will choke on a newborn he was eating for breakfast and say that even he's not that evil.

Lestat will be the one to defeat this evil black feminist. Mekare and Maharet are killed off screen because they are not fan favorites. Lestat stans will tell everyone that Akasha being an evil feminist queen is actually book accurate and say it's not racist or misogynistic because "it's in the books and they're doing the books", and everybody knows Lestat stans are always right

This season will be based on the books "The Vampire Lestat", "Queen of the Damned", "Tale of the Body Thief", "Memnoch the Devil", "The Vampire Armand", "Pandora", "Blood and Gold", "Merrick", "Blackwood Farm", "Blood Canticle" and "Prince Lestat". No, it's not too much, the season will have perfect pacing, and you don't need to know the books by heart to understand what's going on, trust.

This season is also from Lestat's POV, so no gay sex or kisses at all, he's protecting his intimacy with Louis and for some reason he also decides to protect the intimacy between Armand and Daniel. We will get to see him eating Akasha and Dora out though.

The season will get 150% on Rotten Tomatoes and Rolin will say it's their best work yet.

[bifauxnenarmand]

and why was armand not at the table of all the important people in lestat’s life? his urchin with an angel’s face? who had an entire chapter named after him in the vampire lestat?