loona stan

jayden. xix . books, games,etc.

[greedydemands]

i’m sick of ppl trying to equivocate that claudia could’ve been that hateful and mad at louis without the racism. no she wouldn’t be. the entire thing is out of character for the iwtv canon, stop trying to give an inch when none of it even matters anymore. even in the books it’s clear that it’s not fully claudia and louis was shittier to her there. or accepting that he was a pimp after all even if that’s not ~all he was. no he wasn’t. we have long since traced back to the exact real life brothel owner the s1 writers transferred 1:1 to louis. missing and honoring the black writers who made iwtv also means respecting the story THEY wrote, and we don’t have to concede some bullshit about louis having been selfish or cruel or equally at fault for claudia’s abuse. it’s still victim blaming to say the seance was right that louis didn’t change bc he’s taking the abuser back. it’s victim blaming to equivocate that he and armand equally couldn’t consent to the bdsm and that louis was a bad dom even if he still didn’t need to apologize to armand. that antiblack torture scene has nothing to do w louis’ relationship with armand, it has no basis in canon at all, they just wanted the nbpoc to torture louis bc of the optics bc why the fuck would fareed even be there lol? don’t internalize this white supremacist revisionist bullshit, this show used to mean a lot to jacob for a reason, he and delainey came back for a reason, and we know they were lied to. louis was never selfish or a pimp or cruelly culpable for withholding to the powerful men who hated and battered him, that’s not softening his agency for perfect victimhood. claudia came back to see him because she loved him and loved him until her very last breath. we know what we saw

[coldeveryseason]

(tags via @greedydemands) this is another important point bc while folks have rightly pointed out the palpable sense of resentment and contempt the nonblack writers room seems to have for louis and claudia, it's important to think about how this show did have some black writers working on it during s1-s2 and it was an intentional choice to remove all black talent from the writers room and how white creatives often have a chip on their shoulder about their work being popular with a marginalized audience they didn't intend or feeling like their own work and ideas are being outshined by the work of black collaborators. iwtv s1-s2 was loved by black viewers and was praised largely as a black show, with louis and claudia (despite their unpopularity among nonblack viewers and in predominantly nonblack fandom) being celebrated as iconic figures in the small but beloved pantheon of black vampires in pop culture in less than 4 years. omar benson miller and jack o'connell (who knows jacob) cited and recommended iwtv on the sinners press tour and as the original post points out, iwtv s1 was clearly a visual and conceptual reference for ryan coogler when he was making sinners. (and sinners was both a box office and awards success despite the antiblackness of the industry so anyone justifying amc's efforts to distance tvl from iwtv as a purely business/financial decision is being seriously bad faith.) reddit and tumblr, and we know rolin lurks on both, might have been shoulder-deep in antiblack abuse apologia to excuse fan favorite nonblack characters, but iwtv was entering pop culture as a black show, as centering and valuing blackness. and we see now more clearly than ever that none of those aspects of the show- not the compassion and nuance for louis and claudia, not the immersive and lyrical dialogue and narration, not the thoughtful engagement with themes of race, racialized violence and domestic abuse- came from hannah or rolin. they wanted to make a "everyone is evil and nothing matters" vampiric-violence-excuses-all ironic shlockfest where any gesture toward sincerity gets undercut by a self-aware quip and where compassion is only reserved for nonblack people. and the seeds of that are there in the earlier seasons, like hannah always writing episodes that are extremely, disproportionately detailed about the brutalization of black bodies, but there was just enough care, thought and interest in the black leads to make the show seem like it was critiquing the nature of this kind of violence instead of punitively reveling in it. and that part came from the black writers (and likely also some of the nonblack women who worked on s1-s2 but were fired before s3, bc while the show has always been misogynistic, it wasn't cartoonishly misogynistic where every single woman is reduced to a one-note stereotype) and the nonblack writers and producers likely deeply resented them for it.

think of how black fans are often framed as dour killjoys who hate fun and are trying to ruin the essence of fandom itself for centering black characters and talking about antiblackness in shared online spaces, even if we do it in a kind, gentle and conciliatory way. how black fans' analysis of media will be hated or ignored but embraced if a white fan makes the same points, including in discussions of racism. how black creatives often have their work copied or emulated by nonblack creatives who'll villainize the original creator even as they play in their sandbox. the iwtv subreddit is a great example of that where nonblack fans regularly screenshot, copy and repost analysis or even just silly memes made by black fans while the racist mods consistently ban or remove the posts of any black person who wants to talk about antiblackness there or share opinions deemed too sympathetic toward the show's black leads. fandom, even allegedly liberal fandom, is like this bc it's a microcosm of how society treats blackness and black people- there's no reason to think a cable tv writers room also populated by nonblack liberals would function any differently. people talk about the obvious antiblack spite behind a lot of choices this season and expressing concern for what the bts working conditions have been like for the black leads, and we should keep talking about that, but it's also important to consider how the antiblack backlash is likely also directed toward the black writers who used to work there and the white creatives wanting not only to overwrite their work but make a pop cultural impact that's completely disconnected from blackness, to make the show "their own" instead of sharing creative air with blackness. and in doing so ironically they've made sure this season will have a longterm legacy (like sleepy hollow, like the vampire diaries, like the star wars sequel trilogy- all were critically and fannishly beloved at first and now they're synonymous with racism and creative cowardice in pop culture) that's still all about blackness, remembered for embodying the mid-2020s whitelash in usamerican culture and for not adapting the book it was supposed to adapt in their quest to do a whitecentric rewrite of everything good or depthful or compelling about s1-s2.

[mcrmaidlesbian]

“iwtv s1 was clearly a visual and conceptual reference for ryan coogler when he was making sinners.” Where is this solid proof?

[infinitelyweary]

[infinitelyweary]

[ghostof-manderley]

louis is in on the beheading. he knew it was coming. he knew it the whole time in e6.

i think louis is doing this with armand/daniel because he wants to stop lestat from being killed. armand/daniel prob has a different motive but louis i think is in on it.

louis has barely spoken about armand even when given the chance to which is kind of strange considering how things left off in s2 (the lawyer scene and briefly in e6)

the auction scene in e1 - louis and armand are both missing body parts and i think it's for the same reason

more on the auction - louis is not afraid of armand in that scene at all. you would think if someone beheaded you and the love of your life you would not be that casual (i think it's lowkey flirty in an ex way but it's at least not hostile)

when louis went to the house to find bruce, they zoomed in on his machete on purpose - it is very similar to the machete in the armand teaser scene and they decided to linger the shot on both of those machetes

louis beheaded someone on the lawn of bruce's house - so louis knows beheading a vampire does not kill them and perhaps it's foreshadowing

louis has been with armand for 77 years, he def can feel armand coming from miles away. i think he was on the bench distracting lestat on purpose

armand has not apologized to louis which is odd considering that's probably one that people would expect which makes me think they have been in communication already

also raglan james had already asked louis to go kill bruce (for his own grief over claudia and also for talamasca gain) and his gang who were making so many new fledglings and adding to the great conversion so louis has already done at least one thing that goes against the great conversion

[dorkysunflower219]

Another thing to consider: it was his restaurant that they ate at earlier in the night so he could have put something in Lestat’s drink

[nightislands]

That’s a very interesting point! I’m not sure if they put something in the drink, but it is suspicious that Louis had been reserving a member of the Lioncourt bloodline as a special drink for Lestat, especially since this was also apparently meant to be a callback to 1x07. I think it’s possible Armand and Daniel told Louis who “Sofia” actually is but he didn’t believe it, and had to see it for himself. Lestat not having any problem drinking from his own bloodline becomes proof of what Armand and Daniel would be saying. It’s also suspicious that the revenge porn video came to Louis specifically through text, and no one else seemed to say anything about it to Lestat. Even just framing it like it’s for a public audience is enough to shake someone, I think.

Louis then drinks Lestat’s blood, perhaps it’s for extra strength for when his head gets cut off, with pointing out Alex being an ok signal to Daniel and Armand. He did bring dreamstat out to a bench to essentially kill him (from his mind) in season 2 too.

I highly doubt Louis didn’t notice Lestat’s behavior being so off throughout the events of this season, especially in the way Lestat is talking to him. Lestat asks Louis why he didn’t call when he got shot— and something interesting that another person pointed out was that we see Louis get shot multiple times in Season 1 and he didn’t even flinch. Which then also reminds me of this quote from TVA:

“[Lestat] must make a gutter theatrical out of stubbing his toe.”

As I mentioned in my tags, the main purpose of the Dubai interview was to prevent the great conversion. But also, if there’s one thing that Louis and Armand bonded on throughout the years in-spite of the lies and everything was how they felt Lestat treated them, especially as people of color.

Even if Louis does want to make up with Lestat, I think he would be more careful about whether Lestat has changed or not. As we can see as an audience, he has not and I can imagine Louis would’ve noticed it too. That’s not to say he hasn’t changed at all or doesn’t want to, but there are big factors (like Gabriella!!!) still playing a part in preventing him from full growth. There’s also a degree of antagonism that needs to remain in Lestat in order for the QOTD events to happen.

But I digress. Essentially what I’m saying is that I can see why Louis would align with Armand and Daniel on the great conversion despite everything else and this post kinda became a braindump, lol.

[ghostof-manderley]

i also thought the sex tape was strange - the fact that it was just on louis's phone (almost out of the blue). it doesn't seem like it was made public either? but i'm not sure.

another thing weird to me is how easily louis just brushed over ghost!claudia. in s1 and 2, that would have made him depressed as fuck for 365 business days. for him to just be like okay and then sit on the bench after the most diabolical racially charged language being thrown at him by his own daughter - something tells me even ghost!claudia is something louis knows about - either it not being actual ghost!claudia or something else. that i don't know (they also had to mention 'fraudia' in the beginning and louis had a bit of a strange reaction to it).

louis's complacency all throughout e6 was just really ooc in general. louis loves lestat, but we've seen him push back multiple times in s1 and even to dreamstat. it's just very ooc to me that he was just not challenging lestat at all. and this may mean nothing at all but louis had a teaser where he's being interviewed by daniel. i think he might even be in the same exact outfit as e6? i need to fact check (or if someone else beats me to it, please rb or reply and let me know).

he mentions that lestat's music is passable which contradicts his reaction to the performance lestat gave him. i think louis did feel moved by the song but if this clip has anything to do with this, it seems he is being interviewed by daniel perhaps after they put his head back on and he's saying passable to discourage people from attending the concert or possibly derailing the plan - not sure.

edit: he is indeed in the same outfit in that interview teaser. i couldn't find it on twitter but i did find it on reddit here.

[mcrmaidlesbian]

It was Lemuel who sent the sex tape to Louis

[infinitelyweary]

Girl….what did you think of THAT Claudia scene?

omg i was TRYING to wait until post-finale to vent all my feelings but aaahhhhh twist my arm

Honestly ever since ppl started vaguely teasing "anti-blackness in ep6" ive had a tightness in my chest. I was so nervous for weeks and weeks and really built it up in my head as this big horrible thing, so when I finally sat down and watched it...it kind of underwhelmed me at first? My immediate reaction was one of confusion...because nothing about the character we saw in ep6 resembled Claudia. At all. I was so bewildered it took me sitting with it a while to even feel upset about it.

Which could also be attributed to how ineffective the writing is this season, bc none of it moves me. The jokes don't make me laugh, the 'romantic' parts don't make me feel tender, the tragic parts don't make me feel sad...even the most vile/over the top cruelty barely makes me feel anything. I didn't even feel bad for Louis in this scene!!!! Bc none of it felt real (and also bc he barely seems to feel anything about it himself. they aren't even invested enough in their own flogging of Louis to show him suffering over it...Louis tried to kill himself when he heard Claudia's voice in 205...Louis and Claudia parted on far less hostile terms with a heartfelt goodbye in 106 and Louis wanted to kill himself then. Louis would be ashes rn if this shit was serious!!!) This is a show that used to be a GOTHIC HORROR MELODRAMA ROMANCE all genres that LIVE on heightened emotion!!!!! And this season is a cynical dry passionless husk......they've really bled all these characters of their human essence and rendered each and every one of them a cardboard cutout of themselves. It's the most insane waste of potential I've ever seen.

The thing about this episode, is that it convinced me that isn't an accident.

With all the constant in-text mocking of iwtv ("missing the psychodrama of Dubai?", Lestat laughing at Louis's turning speech, mocking Louis's romanticizing of Dreamstat, the constant calling Louis a liar and ripping apart the book full of his words without meaningfully calling out any specific part of his account...Lestat is not pissed off at Louis bc he made up a ticket pocket, like to this day we do not know what exactly in this book is the big lie he's mad about. and he's spent the whole season being mad.....meaning the point here is not to dispute or provide a contrasting POV, but only to ridicule and illegitimize) and the marketing push to court a new audience, it seems like their final push to distinguish tvl from the thorny, nuanced, deeply emotional, queer niche critical darling that it once was is to make this season of television a hit piece on its first two seasons. Every single choice seems like it was purposefully made in order to spite the original series and everyone who ever loved it for what it was (with a special personal vendetta against the person who was heart and soul of that series, Louis/Jacob).

Its only natural that this season's climax is to attempt to retroactively destroy the emotional core of s1-2, which is Louclaudia.

Louis's story is a story of grief. The common jabs people like to throw at Louis about him being whiny or passive or brooding or a sad sack or whatever - that's because his whole character is built around the concept of grief. Louis is the embodiment of a mother's grief over losing her child, the grief Anne Rice was consumed with when writing IWTV. He is grief personified.

(From The Vampire Companion)

The IWTV novel does not exist without Anne Rice's incredible love for and grief over losing her daughter, and Louis's story does not exist without his incredible love and grief over Claudia.

At first I thought they were honoring Louis's characterization by having his storyline continue to focus on his grief. I had my doubts about the Regina plotline (bc what else do they have to say now about Louis other than 'he grieves'? what does this plot add? isn't it just a retread of his journey in s1-2? if he immediately regresses, what was the significance of "I own the night"?), but the core of it is still Louis's love for Claudia, and Louis's grief wouldn't fade away overnight just because he grew as a person. I was actually pleased that in The Lestat Season, Louis was allowed to spend his time, not thinking about Lestat, but still focused on Claudia, even as Lestat spends all his time bitching Louis out (which is also kind of a 105 retread now that I think about it).

But what episode 6 revealed to me, was that the new addition they had for Louis's story was to undermine his grief. Louis was wrong to grieve, he was selfish to grieve. The person Louis exists to grieve not only hates him, but hates him for grieving her. In the hands of the writers of s3, Louis's love for Claudia is forged as a weapon against him, and his pain at her loss is an indictment of his character.

S3's Claudia is angry with him for grieving her. The first thing out of her mouth is "couldn't keep me on the wall". Claudia, who knew all too well (and according to s3, actively weaponized) Louis's incredible depth of love for her, is upset that the person who loved her so intensely mourns her....why? It doesn't make any sense for her to feel this way...of course Louis mourns her, and always will. Would she rather have vanished from the world without a trace, having left no one behind who loved her enough to care she existed? Would she rather have burned in a house fire when she was 14, died alone and unwanted as an unnamed casualty, the way Lestat said was her destiny?

It's not only nonsensical, it doesn't feel like the character. Claudia, who was so desperate to be loved and seen, to belong, to be "put first" by someone.....begrudges Louis for doing just that? Miss "picked another one over me/never about me" would rather Louis never say her name again??

I really can't even see this being as representative of Claudia in any way. So much of what they have her say in this scene goes directly against her character, and, despite all its overwrought viciousness, she doesn't even take Louis or Lestat to task for some of what we know she saw as their greatest offenses!!!!!!!!

Things Ghost Claudia Mentions:

-Louis grieving her. She, in essence, tells him NOT to grieve her, implies it insults her to grieve her, "burn her diaries, burn this dress". Like I said, this is not something Claudia would fucking say lmao even if she was speaking from a place of deep anger, she would not want to be erased, even if the dress on the wall is just a symbol to remind Louis that he fucked up, and that she suffered as a result, she would want to keep a record of the damage.

-Louis being 'back with Lestat' (which he isn't, really, romantically speaking. like they are at most back in a talking stage. so its pretty unclear what the scope of her knowledge is bc she knows about stuff like Lestat's "song on the radio" but not their most recent interactions? idk)

-She says she only didn't kill Louis so she could keep him around to do her bidding until she found someone better. I believe there is a book quote where Claudia says something along these lines and thats what they're pulling from (I couldn't find it though..), but in the books Claudia actually needs a companion to survive. She is in the body of a five year old and is emphasized as being very physically vulnerable; regardless of whether bookClaudia loved/hated Louis, there is a practical element to her choice to keep him around.

But in the show, Claudia is not physically 5 but 14 and a prodigious hunter who goes on killing sprees alone. She has no physical need for Louis that would justify this idea of her keeping him around despite "hating" him. Her need for companionship in the show is solely reduced to her emotional needs (and if she hated Louis, he would not fulfill that). You just can't take any of this shit seriously if you watched the first two seasons...Claudia was always returning to Louis, she was ensnared by the coven because she returned to Louis. Louis was dead weight in Eastern Europe, an active hindrance, hallucinating, depressed, why not leave him? He isn't any help to her in that period, which was years of them not getting along; she was the one that spoke the languages, she was the one keeping him fed, she pulls the revenant off of him. She doesn't need Louis to survive there, she wants him. She returns to him time again because she wants him. Meaning disintegrates without him...

(Obvs Lestat is included in her statement about missing them, but we only see her follow Louis...I really thought we would get at least one flashback of Claudia bonding with Lestat or even just missing him like this esp if they're gonna try to sell us on him being "her favorite" but no.....there wasn't even an attempt so i have no choice but to call bs)

-Louis "read the diary pages seven decades too late". I already discussed how Claudia was averse to anyone reading her diaries in this other post so i won't go over that again, but it is another inept writing choice that even when they want to vilify Louis here, they can't do it right. Claudia saying something like "it took too long" for Louis to read the pages eliminates the entire moral dilemma of Louis reading and presenting the pages without her consent...shouldn't Claudia be more upset because he violated her privacy in the first place? Nope...apparently he should have done it sooner...? Not to mention that Claudia took years to open up to Louis about Bruce, so this idea that she was waiting around on him to do something about it doesn't add up...if anything s1 Claudia seemed to scoff at the idea of him being able to avenge her with her "knight in vengeful black" comment. also no mention of Louis killing the coven in her name....which he did do immediately lol....like...

(also the fact they have Claudia chastise LOUIS for crying like the sa happened to him when they literally overlaid her words with Lestat's trauma crashout and textually made her sa about Lestat.................LMAO!! unserious)

-She says she fabricated the train scene (or at least exaggerated it) to get Louis to cooperate with killing Lestat. Obvs there is a whole heinous layer where the train scene was evoking the imagery of runaway slave captures and these white writers decided to have a black character lie about this specific kind of racialised trauma which is fucked beyond compare. BUT ALSO!!!!!!!!! IT JUST DOESNT MAKE SENSE WITH THE PLOT!!!!!!!!!!! Claudia DECIDES TO KILL LESTAT AT THE END OF 106 BECAUSE HE DOESN'T LET HER LEAVE.......why would she return with Lestat if she didn't feel sufficiently threatened? and why would she decide to kill Lestat if he did not force her to stay against her will??

I've seen it floated that this was all Claudia's master plan to get Louis to go with her (even though she hated him sooooo much.........right....) as though she had her whole tearful goodbye and then magically changed her mind moments later and decided to do her big one and concoct a scheme to eliminate Lestat and ensure Louis would be 'on her side' and leave with her. Maybe that's even what the 306 scene is supposed to lead us to believe...only there is no scene of Claudia telling Louis what happened on the train, or ever using that event to convince Louis to turn on Lestat. All their telepathic conversations we hear about Louis trying to dissuade her from killing Lestat, and its never once a point Claudia uses to her favor. Ever. We get "we have no more use for him. He causes us misery with no horizon. I can kill him. You will enjoy it" etc. This idea of "oh daddy Lou he was ever so mean to me do you know what he said he'd do!" is a brand new invention for this scene alone.

Also.................

Uhhhhhh........no Claudia.....it pretty famously did not???????????

"Worked good, didn't it?" 😏 LMAO! They made her stupid??

Also they still can't decide what Claudia was threatened with. We get "I won't defile your pocket, I'll turn your bones to dust" in 106, "Did I threaten Claudia with rape on a train?" in 301 and "He'd do worse than rape me" in 306.....so.......which is it..........

-The blood thing feels too obvious to even be worth pointing out?? But they've invented this weird blood supremacy thing for Claudia to devalue Louis and value her maker more (even though they do have the same blood bc they both have Lestat's blood....that's why they're like....siblings....). When Claudia hated the idea of Lestat's blood THROUGH LOUIS being used to create Madeleine (supposedly the only character Claudia gaf about...but she forgot the whole lead up to her turning which was her begging Armand to do it for this very reason....mkay)

-And then ok the whole slave thing. Yes Claudia used the word "slave" in s1. But the context is everything when it comes to black characters using this kind of loaded language. Claudia uses "slave" in s1 specifically to refer to their lack of agency as long as Lestat is around. Claudia uses that very loaded language privately to Louis telepathically in order to emphasize the dire nature of their (shared!) situation! And obvs that phrase has a special resonance for them as black ppl living under the thumb of a white tyrant, and references the racialized nature of Lestat's control and abuse of them! She's saying "he treats us like his slaves! this way of life is not acceptable! we have to act!" Claudia was never using that word as an insult against Louis!!!! She used slave ONLY EVER TO DESCRIBE THEM BOTH!!!

Funny how the context of that word from its first use in a season that had black writers has been completely warped into blatant white supremacist ideology in a season without black writers...a phrase exchanged privately to discuss the oppression shared by black characters in order to encourage rebellion in s1, has become an excuse for a racist tirade from one black character to another in front of a white character in s3...

Also making Claudia spout this anti-black nonsense shows they never paid attention to her character bc she was the one most explicitly calling out Lestat's tyrannical whiteness; besides "he's made us slaves" she makes a lot of comments in 107 that align Lestat with violent white supremacy (calling Bach, which Lestat likes, the music of the master race, "Massa's had so much pain in his life" explicitly calling out that she and Louis should not give a fuck about the pain of their oppressor, "well-dressed tyrants, where have I heard that before" when Lestat compliments Nazi tailoring basically calling Lestat one of them). Like as much as Louis would go back and forth with Lestat about racism, Louis doesn't rly ever call Lestat out as espousing white supremacist thinking as harshly as Claudia does.

(Tbh they kinda fucked up this aspect of her character in s2 with her...y'know...dating a Nazi sympathizer and never giving Madeleine anything more than a raised eyebrow about it, but she was never fucking antiblack...and she at least has that "Armand's skin is darker than yours" comment to show race (and the race of Louis's partners) is a thought in her mind...the more i reflect, the more i acknowledge issues with s2 Claudia but my word i never would have foreseen this....)

This slave stuff combined with Claudia misusing nappy (bc that among black ppl means unkempt hair, and Louis's hair was extremely kempt in the scene - but ofc if ur nonblack and racist nappy just means any black hair so), "bleak black life" sounding like some bullshit from The Help, Claudia speaking to Lestat and referring to Louis as "your black queen" which is not a phrase any one of the three of them would ever use LOL, and even just Claudia's repeated use of "bitch" which is also not a word we have heard Claudia use - it's one of the most aggressively straightforward black stereotypes ive seen in modern media. They took a complex, beautiful black character who was treated with so much love and care for 2 seasons and made her an Angry Black Woman.jpeg. I know they wanted to work in a "MHMMMMM" or "OH HELLLLL NAW" sooo bad. Like Claudia's whole vernacular is different!!! She did not talk like that!! It's like every racist fanfic in this fandom ever!!

Things Ghost Claudia DOES NOT MENTION:

-ANY of the abuse suffered by her or Louis!!!!! In Claudia's last moments on Earth she was fighting through the pain of her slit ankles to cuss out Lestat for dropping Louis like an egg. She offered herself to be punished in Louis's place in 105, and then spent painstaking months nursing him back to health after he was dropped. One of the biggest rifts in her relationship with Louis was when Louis would not leave Lestat despite his abuse of them. Not a single mention of this from the ghost. Even if they wanted to focus on battering Louis in this scene, they didn't even have her bring up Louis choking her in 107, physically stopping her from burning Lestat's body! None of the physical violence that tore apart that household even gets a passing reference.

-Louis ruining Claudia's plan to kill Lestat. Louis's big misstep with Claudia was, in her mind, "choosing Lestat over her". Louis felt unable to leave Lestat in 106. Louis slit his throat, but wouldn't burn him, so they couldn't move on post-NOLA, and lived in fear of his return. She was calling him "dead weight" in Eastern Europe. He carried Lestat, "slowed them down". This was the principle grudge against Louis Claudia carried with her after s1, and it also is not mentioned.

-HER MAKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The biggest fucking thing about this character in the books and show is that she forced into a child body for eternity without her consent!!!!!!!!!! It's the original sin of the unholy family, the first wedge to ever be driven between them, a point of contention between Louis and Lestat, Louis and Armand, Claudia and Louis, Claudia and Lestat, THE COVEN who kills her; it's the choice Lestat is haunted by in Body Thief! "Should she have been made or was she a mistake?" "Can she endure, or is she doomed by the circumstances of her birth?" "I WAS STILL BREATHING, WHY DIDNT YOU TAKE ME TO A HOSPITAL! I COULD HAVE LIVED A NORMAL LIFE SWEEPING FLOORS NURSING BABIES!!! WHO AM I GONNA LOVE, WHO WOULD WANT ME!!!!!" Even as late as the trial, Claudia is upset hearing about the extent of Louis's involvement in her turning. SHES IN ETERNAL VAMPIRE HELL BECAUSE SHE WAS MADE!!!!! BY THESE TWO MEN!!!!!!!!!!!! if there was ANYTHING the real Claudia would have screamed at them about it would be this!!!!!! AND HER GHOST DOESNT BREATHE A WORD ABOUT IT!!!!!!! It's so fucking egregious, you have to wonder if any of these writers watched the show

-The Regina stuff????????? If Claudia knows about Lestat's music career, surely she would have witnessed what Louis's been doing too, right? That's not something she would have some shit to say about?? If its the roast of Louis like how is that not her opener. "Yes its really me and not that broke bitch you paid to be my stand in". The Regina plotline truly had no bearing on anything ig

-Charlie???? This show hates black ppl now so I guess they couldn't have Claudia mourn a black boy (only her white gf they fetishized in the previous ep). but they literally showed a flashback to Lestat forcing Claudia to watch Charlie burn THIS SEASON (reshot with Delainey) and drew a parallel to Lestat watching Nicki burn. so....why make that parallel and not have that incident be important to Claudia? its almost like they dgaf

Literally everything about this scene does both Claudia and Louis a disservice. Make no mistake, it may seem like Louis is the target here, but BOTH their characters are being mutilated by this season. This person that we see in this scene is in no way Claudia. s1-2 are contingent upon having empathy for these black characters and being invested in the incredible, complicated, heart-wrenching, deeply loving bond they share. The story is built around Louis's grief over Claudia and therefore Louclaudia is the emotional backbone of the original iwtv series. Tvl has shown itself to be deeply committed to undermining, ridiculing, and eviscerating the notion of the Louclaudia bond and their respective integrity as characters.

It sincerely feels like this writers room has a vendetta against the original series and Louis as its protag by extension, and their hate for Louis so great they can't fathom anyone loving him. and Claudia loved Louis deeply despite all the pain and turmoil of their relationship, and they don't know how to write that, so they're dismantling that bond any way they can. It's disgusting and horrific but also kinda fucking boring.....this show was SO revolutionary bc it was a gothic genre show that took black ppl's experiences and pain seriously and centered them instead of sidelining them and handled them with an empathy that is so rarely afforded to us....and its been mangled into this ghoulish hateful conservative slop.

and they want to do a story with a black female villain next season????? fucking lol........like you just have to laugh.......

(even if they do the Merrick thing of it actually wasn't her ghost all along like. we still had to sit through that. it wouldn't actually change anything. the show gave airtime to these ideas. it might even be worse bc then its just using Claudia as a hammer to wack Louis over the head with while diminishing her place in the narrative even more. its a lose-lose)

[fursasaida]

adult life is truly just thinking “I NEED TO CLEAN” while dealing with the 17 other things that have a hard deadline

[finelytaylored]

MONTREAL METROS (minus hayden) NEED TO BE CATAPULTED INTO THE SUN

[mcrmaidlesbian]

Do people not know what “teenage sweethearts” are anymore?

[mcrmaidlesbian]

Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your

[infinitelyweary]

Yooo fam what’s up. Your blog seems cool and you seem smart and I feel like you’re the best person to answer this question. So in regards to season 1, when it comes to Jonah, (the guy Louis hooked up with), louis said him and Louis first hooked up when Jonah was 16 and he was “…..older”. And I’m….how much older exactly? 💀

But also cuz Louis also, when propositioning Jonah, asked “remember when we were kids?” So now I’m lost

Hi! 😊 Thank you for the compliment!

WELL the actual answer to your question is that we don't know because the show never tells us 🙂‍↕️ I've seen some discourse around how to interpret this "older" line but personally I think if it was important, if the writers wanted to make a point about Louis being drastically older than Jonah or that relationship being predatory in some way, they would have put a finer point on it and made it more clear.

I think the fact that it's kept vague and Louis's other mentions of their past put his and Jonah's ages as being within the same range (as you've observed) implies this "older" line isn't meant to be taken as indicative of anything unsavory (rather I think that line was meant to indicate something else entirely, but I'll get there later). There are a few other things that tip me off in this direction.

Generally, when Louis speaks of himself and Jonah, he positions them as having been close in age/"kids" when they had their "early fumbles".

Louis characterizes his and Jonah's "fumbles" being so early in their development that he says "even then" they knew they were "a little different" aka gay. "Even then" meaning that, in Louis's eyes, they were a little young to have an understanding of their sexualities at the time they were experimenting.

I think Louis's relative sexual conservatism/sheltered experience with sexuality (due to being closeted/Catholic/black in that time period etc) is coming through here, because most people would consider 16 to be a perfectly average time to understand your sexuality? Some would even say it's a little late, bc I know some kids will experiment as early as 14-15. In any case, if Louis considers Jonah's understanding of sexuality to be 'early' at 16, he can't have been much older. I don't think Louis would be calling himself a "kid" having an "early" sexual experience if he was describing himself in his twenties? My thought is that Louis was probably 17-18, MAYBE 19 at the most when he was having encounters with Jonah.

I've also seen people express concern over this line:

Thinking it means that the last time they saw each other was during this "early fumble" period, and that Louis was in his thirties when he was with Jonah, since Louis physically looks 33 still, but that doesn't make sense.

Louis's father died in 1905 (1910 was five years after his father's passing) and he quickly started building his business on Liberty street to prevent his family losing the house (presumably in that same year, since they were only four months away from losing the house) - the whole "you can't look weak on Liberty street" is a part of why Louis starts seeing Lily to "keep up appearances"; SO in 1905, when Louis was in his late twenties (either 27 or 28 having been born in either 1877 or 1878 depending on if his stated birthdate in 107 or the birthdate on his tombstone is correct), Louis was in his "keeping up appearances/can't look weak" era where he is seeing a female prostitute to disguise his gayness, aka would not have been having "early fumbles" with Jonah during this period.

Considering Jonah remarks on Louis being a businessman as though this is a new development to him (along with Paul's passing and Grace having children) but doesn't remark on Louis's father's passing, it stands to reason that Jonah left NOLA around 1905, in the period after Louis's father passed and before Louis became a 'big shot businessman' - meaning they kept in casual contact as adults after this 'early fumble period'.

Also Grace knows who Jonah is, which implies Louis has brought Jonah to meet the family as a friend of his - since Louis probably wouldn't bring an "early fumble" partner home and wouldn't bring Jonah around during his "can't look weak"/"don't everybody need to know what I do" post-father era either, this means that Louis/Jonah kept in contact as friends after they stopped their 'fumbling' and Jonah knowing what Louis looked like as an adult/in his late twenties (which would not look that different from his early thirties, though ofc in 1917 when he sees Jonah in 103 Louis is technically 39-40 and looks younger and that's what he's remarking on) doesn't indicate they were still 'fumbling' when Louis was that age.

ALL THAT ASIDE what I think was the actual intention behind the "I was older" line has more to do with Louis wanting to downplay his relationship to Jonah in front of Lestat. The line comes about after Louis returns from the bayou with Jonah, when Lestat is very obviously Feeling A Way about the fact that Louis left the Azalea with Jonah and came back late (after spying on their tryst, but Louis doesn't know that yet).

Louis is immediately defensive about the encounter. Lestat doesn't even ask a follow-up question past "How was your night?" before Louis feels the need to justify himself, sensing the tension in the air

"He found me", clarifying that Louis didn't go looking for a sexual encounter, it came to him. It's interesting that Louis feels the need to say this after "so I can fuck whoever I want?"/"of course" x 4; he seemed to assert his own sexual agency almost as a challenge to Lestat in the courtyard scene, like "oh okay, if you're just going to fuck whoever, I'll go fuck whoever too", and in the Azalea Louis looks straight at Lestat (who is watching him) before he propositions Jonah, but all that challenging attitude is gone after Louis's actually done the deed. He seems ashamed, like he's done something dirty, or something he feels guilty about and feels the need to make excuses for (and Louis never sleeps with any other man while he and Lestat are together, even as Lestat continues to cheat).

Compare how Louis is undressing the second he reaches the coffin room, immediately ridding himself of the remnants of his encounter before Lestat even turns around to see him vs Lestat who hangs around in the courtyard having a cigarette in the same suit he fucked Antoinette in hours after the fact

Maybe Louis doesn't want Lestat to have to smell Jonah on him the way Louis smelled Antoinette on Lestat 😔 Whether out of Louis's own sense of shame for having sex outside of his marriage, or out of courtesy for not wanting to offend Lestat the way he felt offended, Louis approaches the 'cheating' with a lot more discretion. He goes out to a random bayou to do it (where no one will see them, not just Lestat), whereas Lestat just cheats right there in the living room. Louis even tells Jonah (unprompted) that he is 1. in a relationship currently and 2. that they have an arrangement so it isnt actually cheating. Like Louis is trying so hard to be ethically non-monogamous but he still feels so guilty after 😭

(it's so funny, Jonah just says "so anyway i joined the army so I could be gay" and Louis's like "JUST SO YOU KNOW MY HEART BELONGS TO ANOTHER!!!!" 🙂‍↕️ he's like...trying to be faithful even as he cheats With Permission...that's a Catholic wife....)

Meanwhile Lestat won't even answer directly when Antoinette questions his relationship status...he just gets coy and starts talking about music notes 🙄

(which is another reason I can never get too mad at Antoinette, bc as far as she knows Loustat have an open relationship situation?? like she's kinda trying to ask, but instead of answering in terms of commitment level/boundaries, Lestat answers in terms of desire: 'sure i have sex with Louis, but i also wanna have sex with you, let's be a chord etc')

that was a tangent......>ANYWAY......

after Louis tries to make excuses about how 'the sanctioned cheating he received express permission to do wasn't actually his fault bc Jonah tracked him down with Grace's help', Lestat says

~*~*an old love*~*~

Framing Louis/Jonah as romantic, a lost love from the past. Louis and Jonah have a shared history (along with the shared experience of being black, though Jonah's story about working in a hotel and a gunpowder mill and his comments about Louis's nice shoes etc imply he is from a less wealthy background than Louis). Jonah has known Louis for longer than Lestat has. Lestat knows well how indelible a mark an old love can leave on someone's heart, and he's clearly threatened by the fact that Louis has one, and that they shared an intimate moment all these years later, that Louis still desires Jonah.

After Lestat says this, we get this shot of Louis looking at the mark he left from biting himself, the evidence of his desire (since fangs come out in times of heightened emotion, anger/fear/desire etc), it's a physical manifestation of the emotion being with Jonah brought out in him. And Louis immediately looks guilty and worried Lestat will see, and quickly pulls on his robe to cover himself with his back to Lestat.

Then we get the early fumbles line and then we get "He was 16. I was...older."

You can see Louis look at Lestat during his pause, taking in Lestat's expression before averting his eyes and deciding to finish his sentence with simply "...older."

To me, I see this as Louis realizing he's painting the relationship in too much detail and deliberately pulling back (maybe this is a stretch but it's how I always saw it??). Like it's one thing for Jonah to just be some meaningless fling from the past, someone you experimented with as a kid, vs remembering the exact age (instead of just "oh we used to mess around when we were younger")...idk the specificity of remembering that (when Louis is 39/40 at this point)...IDK MAYBE ITS JUST ME but if you asked me how old the person i had a crush on two decades ago was I could not be definitive (but then again I cannot even remember his name lol). TO ME it's like, clearly he made a mark on Louis because he remembers him in detail, and Lestat feels the same way, and Louis sees that he feels that way and decides to give up and be vague with "I was...older" vs "He was 16 and I was 17 and he was my first kiss and I remember he brought me flowers once on my birthday but he had to hide them so my parents wouldn't see so they got crumpled up in the bottom of his bag and so we had this inside joke and and etc". that was my read at least!!!

Bc the whole conflict around Jonah is about emotional attachment. That's why we get "hearts dancing": Lestat is screaming about this bc he witnessed Louis having real romantic feelings/attraction/attachment to someone else and it freaked him out!! I don't think Lestat (or the episode tbh) rly cares how old Jonah was or how old Louis was, he cares about the emotional reaction Jonah was able to get from Louis, as seen by the fangs coming out/biting and hearing their hearts dancing (HEARTS plural, not just Louis's heart, Jonah's heart was also dancing, their hearts were dancing in tandem, meaning whatever feelings exist between them were reciprocated mutual feelings).

Lestat says so verbatim: Louis/Jonah are an issue in a way Lestat/Antoinette are not, bc Lestat doesn't have feelings for Antoinette (implication being, Louis does have feelings for Jonah)

Adding to that, Louis got so aroused his fangs came out in an era where he had a lessened libido overall due to not feeding enough (and Louis said he 'understood Lestat's indulgence with Antoinette' implying Loustat were having little, if any, sex during this time)

So Louis was having one rat a night and was never horny when Lestat wanted it...and then Lestat watches him getting SO turned on after two minutes with Jonah that he can't stop his fangs from coming out and he has to pull over to feed on a dog and two rats after he dropped Jonah off...Jonah was stoking Louis's appetite in all the ways Lestat hadn't been able to during that period. Of course Lestat was threatened!!

It proves that the issue is with Lestat/between Loustat, rather than Louis just not being a particularly sexual person. Bc I think Lestat's comment to Louis in the courtyard implies he was originally thinking along those lines: Lestat says he needs 'the pleasures of the flesh/of the kill' to get by in his eternal life, while Louis just needs 'the pleasures of the good book by the fire', as though he assumes Louis doesn't need sex/blood in the same way Lestat does (hence him agreeing to let Louis have sex with whoever he wants, bc he probably didn't actually think Louis would want to go through with it).

But obvs when he sees Louis get all horny with Jonah that goes out the window.....Louis does want sex, he just hasn't wanted it lately with Lestat, probably bc of a mixture of feeding issues/tension in the relationship around Louis's not wanting to kill (idk how much you can blame the feeding issues bc, of course, Louis didn't feed a bunch and then go have sex with Jonah, his appetite came around afterwards, so whatever was affecting Louis's libido with Lestat wasn't happening with Jonah in the bayou). Not that Lestat thinks Louis is going to run off with Jonah, but if Louis can have that with someone else when he isn't having it with Lestat...that's scary for Lestat.

I have more I wanna say about Lestat seeing his sexuality as tied to his self-worth/the insecurity/fear that comes up whenever he doesn't feel desired by Louis, but I have another ask about that I still need to answer and this is already way too long!!!!

I hope I answered your question. 🙂‍↕️ Basically, I think the age aspect isn't the thing the show wants us to get from that interaction, so I wouldn't get too hung up on it!

Thanks for the ask!

[mcrmaidlesbian]

This is so interesting! Because I never believed Louis had romantic feelings for Jonah, I thought they were like a friends-with-benefits type of thing. Especially since Louis said he’s never been emotionally close to anyone before Lestat. And I also never got the impression Louis was really feelin him like that all that much. Plus, I thought his he bit into his hands to hide his fangs moreso because being aroused causes fangs to come out and he was trying to hide his fangs from Jonah.

[mollysunder]

Sometimes I think a good chunk of the audience couldn't see beyond Jinx's class and disability to realize she and Mel make solid foils of each other. Idk how so many people could look at Jinx and Mel and only think only one of them was normal. Spoiler alert! Neither of them are!

On one side you've got a preteen who has so much hope in her eyes as she waits to see if her nail bomb will at best maim another child. On the other you've got a teen girl pitching how to make an effective puppet state (in a room where slaughter took place) to advance her own family's interests like she's giving a book report that she's shooting for an A+ for.

And if they make their eyes big enough, God really will forgive all their sins.

[curtwilde]

Bisan says that among all the aid organisations working in North Gaza right now, Ele Elna Elak is one of the most effective, geared towards resolving the water scarcity and making clean water and vegetables available to Gazans.

Donate if you can and share.

[bonivers]

i’m always rooting for two girls to kiss that’s just what’s in my nature

[cannibalchicken]

[seventhpaw]

[mariamariquinha]

What hit me the most in Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man is when you find out that Jud hid the Monsignor container of alcoholic beverages from anyone, not because he wanted to take advantage of it, but to protect someone who had been cured of addiction through his influence, even if it was all a lie.

Benoit says: but everyone should already know that he was still drinking. And Jud says: there's one person who doesn't know, and if he does finds out, it would be the beggining of a new struggle as he just found the way to be cured.

Jud hated the Monsignor, but he sacrificed a piece of his own pride for the sake of someone he barely knew.

[mcrmaidlesbian]

Catholics picking and choosing when to be good to other people. Did that good stop when they wanted to colonize or what?

[teradrama-deactivated20260513]

"the best way to screw jkr over is by making her characters queer!" actually. The best way to screw jkr over is to stop engaging with the property she still profits off of and read a different fucking book

[teradrama-deactivated20260513]

we're 10 days away from the anniversary of this post breaking my blog, so reblogs are back on! maybe I can get a new blocklist out of this

[riverroan]

also, if you decide you REALLY wanna watch the new show/ movies THAT BAD, pirate that shit!!!! piracy is your best friend along with a good vpn!!!! if you wanna buy her books, thrift it! go on ebay or pangobooks or your local library or a thrift store or depop! don't give that wench your money!!!!

[fandomsandfeminism]

I'm gonna hold your hands while I say this: it's not enough.

HP Fandom isn't just a problem because of the direct financial support. It also continues to infuse the IP, and JKR as a result, with cultural capital and social influence. It gives jkr a cultural relevance that means her words are platformed more seriously and more widely than other authors whose works are not infused with this level of sustained popularity. She has said, very plainly, that she (and the people who will fund her future projects) views ALL Fandom action as support.

And also, quite frankly, the last book was published in 2007. Please read a new book.

[seairis]

they're so fucking real for this

[formulaonedirection]

ginger ale unprompted means i love you

[mcrmaidlesbian]

Symbolizing he has the only thing Shane wants. Or where he feels seen the most. Because I’m not sure Ilya even knew Shane liked ginger ale (you can tell me if I’m wrong). But even if he did, the point still stands.

Shane goes through life pretty much under a shadow. He’s centered by everyone, as exemplified in a lot of shots in the show, but that doesn’t mean people care for him or look out for him as a person. Hell, even the bartender, which is seen above, is praising him, saying he can get anything he wants, and etc…..yet when he says he wants ginger ale, the bartender is very hesitant, only wanting to give Shane what he thinks he needs to drink. This one scene alone parallels how other people treat him in the show.