Nanso

how do I tumblr. Inconsistent tagger. My feelings often come out in gifs from VEEP, the best show ever

[antigonickpdf]

the thought i keep coming back to with the finale, and this season in general, is a sense of… infestation, i guess is the best way to describe it. because for the first two seasons, iwtv was a work that— even with all its gothic/horror themes— seemed deeply compassionate at its core, and it remained devoted to beauty and love in a way that felt like a reprieve from (even a small rebellion against) the rising fascism of the culture surrounding it. and now it feels like the hatefulness it was pushing back against has infested it somehow, like a swarm of fuckin termites, which has not only ruined this season but also calls into question the structural soundness of what came before it. like, how did we even get here? was this sort of mean-spirited derision always just lying in wait? idk. i don’t want to make a bad season of tv deeper than it is, but it does feel like witnessing another loss in the cultural battle when a careful, compassionate work that ostensibly cared about the marginalised experiences it depicted becomes just another conduit for hatred toward vulnerable groups. what a fucking bummer, man

[nanso]

If I wanted to sing about this season, this is how the chorus would go:

I have something akin to this in the tags but I'm going to say this here - the IWTV/TVL writers deserve no POC's faith or trust when it comes to how they write about trauma for their characters of color., ESPECIALLY their Black characters. This season was egregious in that regard.

[nanso]

So are any TV writers or critics going to ask Rolin Jones or Mark Johnson about the lack of Black writers or....no?

[nanso]

Except for Madeleine which wasn’t her gf in IWTV everything else -her monologue- is basically 1:1 how it is written in the book!

Can you screen shot or take a photo from the seance chapter in Merrick that is "basically 1:1"? I'll wait.

The seance in Merrick is really painfully beautiful but at no point does Claudia call Louis a slave (twice!!!). And what's more, even if Claudia had called Louis a slave during the seance in the book, as a writer you do not transfer that "1:1" when you change the race of the character from white to Black, particularly a Black man born at the end of Reconstruction and growing up in Jim Crow Louisiana.

In her diaries, Claudia does write that Louis would be easier to manipulate and could be like her slave, which Louis reads earlier. But once again, you can't just transplant that kind of dialogue by white characters onto Black characters.

Oh also anon, can you show me where Claudia described Louis's hair during the seance in the book? Would love to see that 1:1 dialogue you mention. Once again, I'll wait.

AND while we're at it, I think it's curious that you say it's "basically 1:1" when the most intense part of her dialogue in the seance - the end - is not there.

[nanso]

Just...wow. The lack of Black writers in the IWTV / TVL writers room has never been more glaring than episode 6. jesus on a cross.

also I would like to assume there will be deeper exploration about Louis and his cousin than that absolute throw away line in the future but...I'm not holding my breath.

[whitewolf-the-unforgiven]

I don't like a lot of the changes the show made but HER... they nailed it. they managed to make her both horrifying and mesmerising and beautiful! those scenes with her are my fave.

[nanso]

It's very odd watching TVL because:

1) I've read the books and feel like crucial parts are missing and therefore this season, so far, feels disjointed

2) If I hadn't read the books, I don't think I would actually even vaguely understand what was happening in the flashbacks...

I will not be surprised if there is some final thought about the way trauma impacts memory and recollection and therefore all of this is part of some Great Plan by the writers but....we're 5 episodes into a 7 episode season; and you should not have to be in a place by the end of a season that you need to re-watch it all for it to make sense. And that is increasingly what it feels like we're gearing up towards.

[nanso]

Hearing Assad Zaman and Eric Bogosian talk about Marius genuinely made me want to scratch my eyeballs out because (and this is nothing against Assad at all) -

What do you MEAN parallels between Marius and Daniel??? I'm not a book purist, but god dammit, in Armand and Daniel's relationship in QotD, it's Armand who is taking on the role of Marius (which one could read as a way of processing his trauma, something he never has done before). Also we haven't seen tv Marius yet but literally the only similarities between M&D are they are both white and are shitty people/vampires (and unless Marius is seriously aged up, their ages are not similar at all!)

Also holy fuck - what the hell is wrong with Eric Bogosian and why is he joking about Marius's abuse of Armand? and why is this not the first time he's done that in an interview and no one fucking calls him out on it, not even the interviewer.

[nanso]

Louis talking about thinking he saw Claudia....Jacob Anderson's acting is so fucking cerebral and raw and just absolutely devastating all at once a;lsdkfja;lskdjf He leaves me absolutely speechless.

[nanso]

Given the way the HR IG account announced the Peabody win yesterday, I feel like it's worth mentioning:

-The Heated Rivalry team did not find out about the win yesterday like it was a surprise; Peabody winners are always notified ahead of time, generally 1-2 weeks notice and it is under embargo until the public date.

-That lead time enables all winners to have their promo material ready, ie the entire HR team, promo and social included, would therefore have plenty of time to get their announcement material ready. So posting a solo photo and not both leads was a very conscious choice. (Oh and btw, both nominees and winners can ask the Peabody folks which photos they want highlighted for official Peabody posts!)

-Unless they have the most incompetent social and PR team ever created, it is very hard to believe the promo roll out was not run by the EP of the show.

-More than that, there is no world in which they have not seen the way POC fans have been upset about the variety of things (racist hate train on tw, criticism of public comments by JT and RR, the list goes on) that have happened re: Hudson. And they still made that choice.

*To conclude: white people, you are exhausting*

[albertserra]

Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal by Mohammed el-Kurd, 2025.

Edward Said at the border of Lebanon and Israel, July 2000.

[cat-equation]

One thing about Jaime Lannister is he will see someone going through a traumatic situation and be like 'have you tried dissociating? c'mon let's dissociate together' and genuinely think he is helping

[nanso]

Qwhite interesting how AMC is promoting The Talamasca show, specifically an Entertainment Weekly cover, in a way they have never really done with two seasons of Interview with the Vampire! So curious about what the difference is.

[fellahimedia]

The woman is reportedly in stable condition right now. Yesterday, she was in the ICU. One thing that always frustrates me about settler violence is that it has become background noise and "numbers" bc it happens on a daily against many towns but because settler violence is a norm its not treated like breaking news until we get a viral video/photo of it. This woman is not the first and last victim of this type of violence, and the IOF know exactly who these men are and they left as the assault began. Again, these settlers are not going to be stopped because their goal is to expel the residents via terror, so isr*el can colonize more land

This Instagram account ISM palestine reports on these daily abuses and a record amount of people have showed up today to harvest olives in solidarity with the people being attacked

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ISM Palestine (@ismpalestine)

[nanso]

I don't like wading into fandom discourse but this is nagging at my brain a bit.  A lot of IWTV fans seem to think Daniel pointing out that readers will likely exploit or fetishize Claudia's story somehow absolves him of this when it actually happens. In fact, it's the opposite and more damning for him.

Journalism is often exploitative but one of the things a *good* journalist is supposed to do is to 1) make sure they aren't doing that in their reporting and how they view the story and 2) minimize the chances of readers doing so. More than that, it's become consistent practice in the journalism industry to employ ongoing consent with interviewees, particularly those relaying stories and experiences surrounding trauma. Ie, after an interview, you check in with the interviewee and make sure they still consent to the interview being published.

Daniel is not a sensitive journalist, which is a window into who he is as a character; he's predatory and self-centered. I think a lot of IWTV fans dwell on the idea of Daniel being some hero of modern journalism because we're told he won two Pulitzers, reports on seemingly progressive issues and therefore is almost like some RBG-style girlboss or something for liberals (side-eye). One of the takeaways for me from the opening in the pilot is to show that Daniel was actually in a pretty low place and was selling himself, in fact, to keep going.  More than that, Daniel's treatment of both fake!Rashid and real!Rashid is another window into who he is as a person and journalist and how he views the people around him - *they're there to give him information, their own vulnerabilities be damned. * (Do people really not understand how wildly unprofessional and gross it was for Daniel to ask a -seemingly young- brown man in Dubai if he's all but a prostitute for his employer on their second meeting??) Other people's stories and information are lifeblood to him because he views their lives as something he can and should have, which is practically a hallmark of mainstream white journalists.

Obviously Louis bears responsibility not only for what happened to Claudia but what letting anyone, let alone someone like Daniel, have access to her personal diaries would mean. But that doesn't absolve Daniel of blame. Louis also still had a say in his story being told - and it's pretty clear that Daniel didn't care about Louis's consent.  Because selling stories is what he does, and definitely without a care for those involved.  It's in his nature, you could say. 

Anyways, Daniel saying in S1 that Claudia's story would be exploited no matter what doesn't absolve him; he could have either not published the book or taken very conscious steps in his own writing to minimize the chances of that. But he didn't - because he's someone who exploits the stories of others (and often his own).  He can't even make the argument many journalists will make about needing to publish for the greater public good. That is not what Daniel publishing the book was about and it wasn't about justice for Claudia or helping Louis heal; for Daniel, it was about himself. 

Daniel as human journalist was exploitative and mercenary (and clearly fell quite short of ethical journalism practices!). As a vampire, I dread to imagine.

[karo-draws]

Claudia sighting this is not a drill

[creativelycomplex]

SHEILA ATIM IS OUR AKASHA!!