alternate version of 2x05 where armand did in fact want to lick louis’s boots
lowk embarrassed to post this but i feel like the people deserve to see, also i’m thinking of setting up a super cheap patreon ($2-3 or so a month) for nsfw vampire and oc stuff (poll below if ur interested)
the thing about that louis and armand scene is that it could have been so good had the context been literally anything else.
we could have had louis and armand finally coming to a moment of genuine understanding of each other, we could have had them actually deal with the fallout of their 77 years together seeing as it was, yknow, literally the driving force and main conflict of the previous season but that this season chose instead to completely ignore up until this very point. we could have had that moment where armand is finally seen for the first time in his life and it would have been EVERYTHING to me as someone who has been waiting for so long for the show to acknowledge armand's desperate and bottomless need to be loved.
and the thing is— it could have still been fucked up!! it didn't need to be sanitized in any way, this show's never been clean, armand's never been good. he's fucked up and evil, but he's not a moustache-twirling villain with no apparent motivation other than to make others suffer. he's a survivor, he's desperate, he's a scared child forever trapped into a fawn response, we know this. we know he does heinous shit to protect whatever it is that he's currently clinging to because he needs to belong to something or someone in order to feel like he's anything at all. but to remove all of his complexity and make him go after louis so violently and with this nonsensical evil masterplan when louis has clearly left him alone for the past 2 years, meanwhile daniel and lestat aggressively berate him, mock him and publicly humiliate him and get none of this violence directed at them is crazy. it's disrespectful to him and especially to louis who is just brutally tortured and forced to acknowledge his past "sins" and apologize to the guy who lied and manipulated him for 77 years. and then as if that wasn't enough they make him sympathize and be kind to him, by using armand's traumatic past as a throwaway sob story to be like "see? he's just misunderstood :((" and call it a day on armand's whole arc for the season. and jacob and assad are giving it their all in that performance god bless them, and in any other context I would have been writhing on the floor in agony after seeing armand break and cry for the first time in the show, but the way they do it here doesn't feel earned or genuine at all. it's unsatisfactory and so racist and so disgusting and it turns a scene that I would have otherwise been obsessed with completely sour and unwatchable.
It wasn't naive, foolish, or wishful thinking to think the last episode would be cohesive. Fragmented narratives aren't new forms of storytelling, and a well-written narrative can clean itself up with surprisingly short strokes if it is laid out well. While the narrative up to episode 6 was very flawed, it wasn't in shambles. The actors and writers also kept us excited for it, and while healthy skepticism of official press is fine, there wasn't much indication that the result would be like that without hindsight.
Rolin, Hannah, and other writers in the writers room have impressive resumes of previous outside work that confront the topics portrayed in TVL. While the tonal shift was surprising and flawed in ways none of us expected, it was unexpected for the story to go in the cartoonish and simplified direction that it did. Expecting the type of quality and commentary they've displayed in their other works, inside this one, isn't foolish. This was surprising.
Having hope, faith, and reparative analysis is not worse or better than paranoid analysis and pessimism. Both approaches to media can be constructive and helpful to keep media discourse diverse. Both approaches do become flawed when they outright ignore or avoid strong story-elements and patterns, however.
While reflection on the writing patterns that this decision revealed is to be expected, and can help us make sense how we got here, it is also diminituitive to say the writing was always bad, or it hasn't changed much. It has, and it did. The first two seasons were inspiring and wonderfully gothic, and genuinely good television. While they weren't *perfect,* perfection is a silly thing to expect a piece of art to be. Many people expected a bumpy ride and were ready to swing with the flaws. Once again, this was a surprising result.
Some people saw it coming from a long way away. Good. I'm glad. Perception and allowance for flawed narratives differ per person, and I'm glad this didn't take everyone by surprise. No one is smarter, or better at analysis, or more woke, or [insert weird moral comparison here] because they spotted this before someone else. Waiting for a narrative to finish its story is just an approach to analysis and criticism that many people employ.
A lot of us are disappointed. Many of us are angry and disgusted. Some people had a good time, others never want to think about season 3 again. I think overwhelmingly, though, most of us are confused and suspicious. Those feelings don't come from nowhere, and they especially don't come from people needing an easier story to understand or from needing to make room for complex storytelling. Those emotions come from disappointing stories and betrayal.
Just, you know, keep in mind that a large majority of people stayed in an active and divisive fandom for 2 years because they were excited. We didn't know this was how it would begin or end.
Ok. So I really didn’t like the finale. It honestly made me re-evaluate even the things I did like earlier in the season, which is a difficult thing to process. Having the cognitive dissonance around having loved the first two season, having devoted so much thought to the characters, and having defended the season up until the reframing of the finale episode is really difficult. There are still things I enjoyed and maybe I’ll come back to them. But for now I need to process my feelings, and I do best in writing. So here are my thoughts.
To me, Armand has never actually been a schemer. He’s a manipulator, but he moves out of fear. When he chose the coven in Paris, it was to ensure his own survival. (And also to eliminate the reflection of himself that he saw in Claudia, perhaps. More on that in a bit). When he erased Louis’s memory, it was to preserve his companionship. These are all game-time decisions made to preserve himself. And sure, maybe he took some pleasure in the aesthetic art of the trial. That doesn’t change the fact that he was and always is grasping for security.
Because of that, I find the idea that he would use facial recognition software, track Regina down, blackmail and cajole her into following Louis around the world in order to bait him into… what? Reliving the misery he spent seven decades trying to erase out of Louis’s head? Pretty out of character. I can see Armand wanting revenge. I cannot see him carrying out a three year detailed multi-step scheme to get it. I also don’t understand logistically what this was supposed to accomplish—Regina didn’t actually lure Louis back to Armand, because Regina was in NYC and the butcher shop is in Montreal.
I also feel like that whole thing being designed by Armand really lowers the emotional impact of the weird emotional incest between Louis and Regina. It cheapens a thing that felt really emotionally complex to me. It was actually just a part of an evil plan. A puzzle box all along.
Speaking of Regina. It is wild to me that the episode critiqued Louis as a pimp so much without pointing out that Armand was basically doing the same thing with Regina- paying her to pursue a client. @bluedalahorse I talked a lot about how the scene would have been way more impactful if Regina hadn’t been an Armand plant, but had accidentally stumbled into the scene in the butcher shop while searching for Louis to get him to give her the money he owed her. That could have created a moment where Armand was suddenly confronted with her resemblance to Claudia as well. Armand could have reckoned with why he did what he did to Claudia. He could have acknowledged some of the parallels between himself and Claudia, and that would segued into the way that Louis genuinely understands his pain and creates that moment of empathy between them. Armand letting Regina go because he realizes some of the mistakes he made with Claudia would have been an actual moment of growth for his character.
I did like that moment. Assad’s acting in that moment especially was wonderful. But the fact that it had to literally be tortured out of Louis did make it feel cheap to me. I did not like that two South Asian men were portrayed to be conducting non-consensual medical experiments on two Black people, one of whom resembles Claudia who was a disabled Black woman. There are too many examples of very real medical experiments unethically conducted on Black people for me to be comfortable about that. There are too many instances in fiction of Muslim coded characters being maniacal villains for me to be comfortable with that. And the fact that they made such a big deal about it being in a Jewish deli?? Why??? That was so weird and uncalled for.
I think people are going to justify Armand’s apology/revenge tour as him reverting back to his Children of Darkness days, but I actually find it kind of hard to square with that. Armand’s actions are rooted in a search for survival, but also, always in self-denial. That’s what being a part of the cult taught him: pleasure and beauty is barred to him. He must carry out Satan’s wishes. So he’s violent, and he’s cruel, but those things are based in self-flagellation more than they are based in animus against the outside world. There’s a world where in this season we saw Armand sink deeper and deeper into self-harm as no one accepted his apology, where he denied himself food and happiness, and only arrived at these horrible acts at the end of that journey. I could even see a world where they put his end-of-Memnoch suicide attempt in this season. Maybe we still will see some of that if we rewind and see some of Armand’s point of view of the events. But that does not square with Armand birthing this horrible plot from the moment he was thrown into the wall in Dubai, and meditating on it for three years.
It also doesn’t really square with Armand turning Daniel three weeks after Dubai in my mind. If Armand was already occupied developing this evil plan—why stop to turn Daniel along the way? Maybe he really was turned out of spite, and to spite Louis specifically and not Daniel. I will hold out hope until we see otherwise that that is not the case, and that there was tenderness in the act. In general, I don’t really see how Armand being so hung up on revenge against Louis squares with him realizing that his love for Daniel was so present in Dubai. Maybe this is me woobifying devil’s minion too much, but the thing that is so special about them to me both in the text of the book and meta narrative of Anne’s writing is that loving Daniel is Armand’s redemption. The devil’s minion chapter prevented Armand from ever becoming the revenge-seeking person we’re seeing here. So what does it mean for Armand to be doing this with Daniel by his side? How can their love ever have that tenderness and that redemptive quality to it?
I can think of some answers and places the show might go. I can see that Daniel was initially able to surprise a true moment of emotional vulnerability out of Armand, and that Armand then clamped down by revealing the stalking and nothing more about a past relationship (and I do still believe that there is more; the lack of information in this season just feels like there’s more to come). Daniel is won over by the promise of vampiric power and revenge against Lestat and also a sexual attraction to Armand he can’t control. He goes along with the plan and gets swept up in the sex they’re having. But maybe he’s also there to get answers. Maybe he’s not so in the fog that he isn’t also investigating Armand still. He loves him but he can’t trust him. And that would honestly square more with what I know of Daniel. Daniel is mean and vicious but not without a point. It doesn’t seem in character to me for him to be chopping heads for the sake of chopping heads. (But he’s the minion! I hear you say. Well yes. But the whole point of devil’s minion is actually Armand granting Daniel’s every wish. Not Daniel being a henchman for revenge plots). But if there’s a story at the other end of it, then I believe he’d be there at Armand’s side. And maybe it’s in that reveal that they will find real honesty with each other, and that’s when that true and redemptive love can start. But will the show do this? I have no idea.
(I also can’t imagine that Daniel would have co-signed Armand torturing Louis like that. Louis and Daniel are made at each other, but they still have a profound connection, and Daniel starts the season out hoping for Louis’s approval. I wonder if Armand lied to him about what he planned to do with Louis’s head, and why he needed to separate Lestat and Louis.)
I also really hated the cracks that Daniel made about autism. That felt especially wild considering how autistic coded Armand is. I also wonder if Alex refusing to talk is a nod to book Daniel going mad after being around Armand, and if so I doubly dislike the comments. I’ve always loved Daniel as a disabled fan, and to have the one-two punch of him being magically cured and then to have him say those things felt really bad.
Everything in Lestat’s mind palace was pretty fine I think. I liked him having to confront all of his failed loves and his kills. I liked it culminating in Lestat refusing to perform for Gabriella. That’s the answer to the dramatic question of the season—will Lestat shake off Gabriella’s control, and be able to reconcile with his past? And the answer is yes. But it feels so overshadowed by the B plot (btw I’m so sorry y’all for this post, I was wrong, Armand was not the C plot protagonist but simply the extremely villainous B plot antagonist, once again) that it didn’t really have the punch I feel like it should have. Why were we spending so much time in a horror movie when we should have been building up to this moment of emotional catharsis? Why were we bogged down by puzzle box reveals when we should have been letting Lestat’s emotions soar? The engine of this show has always been relationships, especially the romance between Lestat and Louis, and I felt like this episode barely touched on it.
The other thing that this finale left completely unaddressed was the trial. Since there was no “Armand was keeping Lestat hostage” reveal, I have to assume that Lestat really was there of his own free will to get revenge. I don’t think we’re going to dip back into the past of Paris again, or at least I hope not, because at this point I cannot survive another “Armand is secretly evil” reveal. In another better finale, Armand would be torturing Lestat’s dismembered head, not Louis’s. We could have focused more in on the Lesmand relationship, and about how desperate Armand always was for Lestat’s love that he never got. We connect that back to a flashback in the 18th century with Lestat being cruelly dismissive of a desperate Armand, and then to the trial as well, with Armand keeping Lestat in Magnus’s tower. Then it’s up to Lestat to extend understanding to Armand, and it becomes about him recognizing the ways in which he and Armand are similar and have both fallen into the role of abusers to people they claim to love. It becomes more about Lestat reckoning with his failures (the theme of the series!), rather than a Black man being mutilated and then convinced to apologize to his abuser. But since none of this actually happened, it’s very weird that Lestat’s dream sequence doesn’t touch on his role at the trial at all. Paul tells Lestat that he “loved Louis the way he should be loved” or whatever, but no one’s addressing that he went to Paris to seek revenge (after dropping Louis from the sky). (I also did not enjoy another Black character arriving simply to sanctify Lestat. In another episode with less going wrong I would be 100% caught up on that. But as it is it barely enters my list of most egregious sins).
I honestly wish that they had completely cut Armand out of the present day in this season and let him just be in flashbacks. Save devil’s minion and his emotional arc for season 4 if this was the alternative. I think a season 4 that actually does some Armand pov and develops devil’s minion could go a long way to putting the Armand we just saw in context. But at this point I don’t really trust the writers to necessarily deliver on that. And there’s no way for me to erase the image of him torturing two Black characters in a moment that feels deeply out of character from my mind.
I haven’t even really written in depth about my feelings about the séance scene yet, but I also felt really frustrated by that and the way it throws so much of the first two seasons into question. I feel like the writers really felt excused from having to think seriously about questions of race (and disability and queerness, to a lesser degree) now that they have “proven” themselves in the first two seasons and now that the show has changed title. Things that I think really needed an adaptational deft hand like the séance were ported over unchanged from the books, uncomfortable implications about abuse victims intact, while other things that I did not think needed to be reinvented or made up whole cloth, like Armand’s revenge tour, where given their own spin by the writers. It really felt like the things they picked to bring over were highlighting the worst elements of Anne’s writing rather than the best. I really, desperately hope that can change moving forward.
I also have no idea how much we’re supposed to trust Lestat’s recounting of events. Does Daniel really know the word yaoi? Or is that something Lestat is putting into his mouth? Did Claudia really say she hated Louis more than Lestat, her primary abuser? Or is that Lestat’s spin on the séance? Does it matter, if the show runners are implying that Lestat is inherently more trustworthy than Louis?
I feel a little embarrassed in some ways, because I am normally quite good at spotting a writing flip like this a mile off. I’ve done it with other shows I’ve loved less. But because I shared a playwriting background with Hannah and Rolin, and because of the quality of the first two seasons, I really defended them and the promise of this season. And there were a lot of elements of this season earlier on that I really liked! But I can’t ignore what is wrong with it now, and I’m sorry I tried to minimize the possibility of things going south like this. I do have faith in the careful attention this fandom pays to these characters, and I am looking forward to reading fic that adds the depth that was missing in canon, especially around Armand. I love how people in my little fan circles love Armand and Daniel and the other characters too. I guess that’s the note I’ll end on. I’m going to go work on my own writing now, with characters I love and can control, and when I’m feeling ready, maybe I’ll get back to writing about these vampires too.
my final thoughts on tvl (mostly under a read more as this is a very long post):
from the moment the first episode of the vampire lestat dropped, it was evident that this show was going to be nothing more than a shoddy, poorly paced mess that cared more about humiliating louis—alongside its other black and brown characters—than telling any sort of cohesive or lovingly crafted story. the amc team set out to undo the two previous seasons of impactful writing, and punish those of us who resonated with interview with the vampire and the characters it presented to us viewers.
rolin, hannah & co. rewrote some of their powerhouse characters (louis, claudia and assad) around uplifting a white man and excusing him of the things that he's done, but even in that they failed. because this season did not make lestat more likeable; it barely fleshed out any of his past, but made it a point to show us him kissing his mother every episode, and even that was oftentimes played for no more than shock value or laughs. there was no character development on lestat's part, even when other characters' writing was sacrificed to exonerate him.
there is genuinely no winning with this fandom or show as a black viewer. when the first season came out everyone went on and on about Book Accuracy™ and how the changes made were an affront to the legacy of anne rice's story. and as a result it was review-bombed by racists for how unabashedly black it was. then season two came out and everyone took the opportunity to say that louis was lying about what happened and that he was on an equal playing field regarding lestat and armand. and critics couldn't be bothered to praise jacob, delainey and assad for their incredible performances, instead turning the spotlight on sam, despite lestat being one of the more minor characters until ep 7. and things only got worse once iwtv ended
s3/tvl started promo and already the shift was obvious. rolin talked shit from day one "it's the lestat show", "it's no longer two old men sitting in a room", "the season ended with hugs and kisses", "if you hate this season you hate lestat and daniel" etc. sam had to correct rolin twice over the things he was saying regarding other cast members. promotion for this season when above and beyond, every poster was a lestat solo and people argued that that was due to this being lestat's season. ignoring the fact that lestat was still a prominent character on many of the s2 posters. they did countless tv spots and photoshoots and a live concert and a fashion collab, and basically did everything in their power to promote this now white-led season as much as they could.
they baited people with loustat and lestat flashbacks and incredible writing, claiming that this was their best season yet, and there's been either none or very little of those things. the pacing is awful, louis been reduced to a caricature and punching bag, and not a single character feels fully flushed out or written with genuine passion. yet the book purists aren't kicking up nearly as much of a fuss. lestat being a rockstar was not as big of a plot point as it's been during this season, and they're focusing so much on that (and his relationship with gabriella) that the writing is suffering tremendously.
but then again, i can't even say that because a lot of the choices feel very sinister and intentional: all the women we've seen thus far being sexual props (dee basically just being toted around as a groupie to fuck lestat and whoever else, gabriella being a poorly constructed "femme-fatale" and fucking lestat and whoever else every episode, regina having an only fans, tc having unresolved desires about motherhood(?), christine fucking lestat/being mocked for that and also having a sex dungeon or something? the faux-madeleine kiss). what happened to our well-written and interesting characters? can women not be engaging to viewers unless they're sexual in some way, shape or form?
and louis....they've completely butchered his character to a degree that, as ive said a hundred times before, feels incredibly racist and deliberate. anyone that tries to say that the writers didn't purposefully set out to humiliate louis' character and subject him to as much antiblack racism as possible are purposefully ignoring the evidence in favor of supporting the garbage that was shoveled at us this season. what narrative explanation is there for:
louis apologizing to lestat for a book he didn't want written
louis being called a "nappy headed slave"
louis being told that he can't escape the slave mentality etched into his being
louis being told by claudia that she hates him more than her abusers, rapists, and lynchers
louis sympathizing with a man who mocked his suicide attempt
louis making a comment on being sexually assaulted as a child and never having it explored
louis specifically having his head cut off and put on display
louis being tortured by armand (the man who organized his lynching) and apologizing to armand
louis having armand carve a branding (the first letter of armand's name) into his chest following his (louis') being called a slave in the prior episode
louis' torture being broadcasted live as some sort of fucked up red-room bullshit
louis not seeing the ghost/hallucination of his brother, but that being reserved for lestat. and that ghost then apologizing to lestat on louis' behalf and thanking lestat for "loving him the way he needs to be loved".
nothing that the writers had louis experience this season did anything for his character, he was used for torture porn and to lick the wounds of his white (ex)-partner, who he still refers to as the love of his life. louis is denied the right to be a victim and expected to understand that everything he went through was ultimately a result of his own sins and flaws. why was louis not someone that armand apologized to when he wrote his letters? because those apologies were reserved for white men that he did not hurt nearly as much as louis?
why did armand torture louis but leave lestat alone? why did the writers have armand torture a black woman as a way to hurt louis, but lestat was spared from this horrific abuse? why did louis have to apologize to armand for not loving him or whatever the fuck, while lestat was, as i said, not faced with this name vitriol? i don't even care about "ship wars" at this point, but why did armand tell louis that he never really loved him? and to expand on that point; why did claudia also tell louis that lestat was the one that she actually liked? why, again and again, is louis being shown as unlovable, undesirable, and the true evil villain that has plagued everyone's past.
there is a specific sick joy taken by the writers in subjecting louis (and regina and claudia) to as much antiblackness and suffering and cruelty as possible. louis is a victim as much (and even more, at times) than any one of the other main characters this season, and yet that is constantly cast aside so they can continue to push this rhetoric that louis is The Awful, Manipulative Pimp.
nevermind the fact that lestat murdered prostitutes and kept dee around to do no more than fuck and drink from her. nevermind the fact that armand kidnapped people to be tortured and eaten for his shitty plays. nevermind the fact that lestat and armand directly contributed to the almost-lynching of louis and the lynching of his daughter and her lover. "they're all monsters, they're going to behave this way" except for when its louis, then he needs to be repeatedly punished?
and with regards to the trial: why is that never fully addressed again? lestat can be disproportionately mad at louis for a book daniel wrote and published (without his permission), but louis can't be upset at lestat for taking part in the murder of their daughter? they couldn't even be bothered to write lestat telling louis that he was under armand's control. would that have not been another way to absolve this white man of his crimes, as they're so eager to do? but because they have it said two times that lestat went there of his own volition, we're just supposed to gloss over the fact that this man knowingly planned to murder his lover, and succeeded in murdering his daughter? but louis is the one that apologizes and begs for forgiveness??
this is a quick aside, but they also completely ruined armand's character. they took such a complex, interesting and fantastic character and stripped him of all his parts. now he's just the undesirable south-asian man (which is horribly racist in and of itself) that deluded himself into thinking he and lestat had a relationship, and apologizes genuinely to his white lovers but hates the black man he lied to and brainwashed for 77 years. the writers use armand as another character (like claudia) to spew their personal hatred for louis, and believe that they will be above reproach because armand is not a white man.
armand is a survivor of csa and that is their excuse for how he brutally tortures louis and drags an apology out of him, but when does he subject gabriella to this? she abused lestat for decades and decades as both a mortal and a vampire. but since that wasn't done to armand he doesn't care? but oh wait...that argument falls apart when you realize that louis didn't sexually abuse armand either. he is being punished for something he did (not to armand) over a century ago, and if that's the case, lestat and armand and gabriella should be drawn and quartered for their crimes. but, no, nothing anyone else does matters, this season is solely about humiliating louis as much as possible. lestat and daniel actually made fun of armand's trauma this season, but it's louis that deserves to be tortured....right, right...
i really don't even care about loustat at this point, but we were told that we were going to see louis "through lestat's eyes" and that it was going to be beautiful and this was allegedly the coolest louis has ever looked. but all we've gotten is lestat being horribly cruel to louis and calling him crazy, mocking his suicide attempt, and acting put-upon when louis goes to him for help. the closest we came to genuine loustat was at the very beginning of the season. and then when the book dropped they used that as an excuse to have lestat disparage louis in one way or another every time he's mentioned or they share a scene.
every single relationship louis made in the iwtv s1 & s2 is butchered or straight-up retconned. daniel wanted to reconcile with louis but all of a sudden doesn't care about that and is willing to help armand enact his laughably villainish plan? armand was chasing after louis and begging him to understand the end of the previous season but now he's torturing louis and forcing him to apologize for...what exactly? claudia berates him and the complex feelings she had for louis are watered down to vitriolic rage and antiblack language reserved solely for only one of her parents? lestat was tearful and remorseful during the iwtv s2 finale but is now mocking louis' suicide attempt and calling him a cancerous jackal?
the finale was all of their grievances with louis and hatred for the explicit blackness of the first two (but especially first) seasons rearing its nasty, ugly head. they succeeded in destroying beloved characters and giving the racist fans that hated louis exactly what they wanted. they backed out of and changed almost every writing choice they made during iwtv s1 and s2, and even if their end goal for this show was to drive louis and lestat back together, they did that in the most manufactured and racist way possible.
there was no story told this season, we learned almost nothing new by the end of it. akasha didn't even awaken and the rockstar angle was pointless and used as nothing more than to artificially pad the runtime and make up plot points that went literally nowhere. tvl felt like the writers fucked up version of a 'fix it' fanfiction, because there was nothing that needed to be fixed in iwtv to begin with.
in conclusion, this show did not need to be made. begging jacob to come back just for his character to be treated this way was very, very callous and disrespectful to the phenomenal acting that jacob does. to say im disappointed and heartbroken for jacob, delainey and assad would be an understatement—they have been forced to defend and explain awful choices made for their characters this season despite not having been the ones to write them. and people will continue to use them as scapegoats for this season to pretend that "they were on board" with the racism and antiblackness, as if black and brown actors aren't repeatedly blacklisted for speaking out against bigoted writing choices. my heart bleeds for whatever jacob and assad will be subjected to at sdcc.
tldr; this season would have been written completely differently had louis, claudia and armand been white as they were in the books. rolin, hannah and the others writers for this season sought to create an antiblack, racist, misogynistic, misogynoir-laden mess in a failed attempt to rewrite their white lead's cruelties and victimize him at the expense of every non-white character in the show. and they delight in watching a large portion of their viewership happily consume this slop and defend every single one of their writing choices while their black and brown cast are put on the spot to defend this shit. it is obvious, and to defend or excuse it is doing no more than showing that you support what they've done and don't care about how harmful it is.
and, finally: if you're going to come into my comments or ask box to defend the blatant racism this season, please do not waste your breath. im at the point now where i will be blocking you instead of explaining my thoughts for the hundred millionth time. and beyond that, i have no desire to go back and forth with racist, media illiterate people on the internet.
I'm glad you're here + that we've met. You are very sweet and kind, hot, creative, talented, and like you said to me also hh, one of a kind. You give so much to the people around you, which I admire. You deserve all the best. Ily 💗
What helped me write trauma better is remembering that the nervous system learns predictions. If danger used to come after quiet, calm can feel threatening. If kindness used to come with a price, kindness can feel suspicious. So healing is not just “they know they’re safe now.” Healing is the slow, annoying, deeply unfair process of teaching the body that the old prediction is not always the present truth.
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