[pisc3sthings]

season 3 is a symptom of anti-Blackness, white fragility and white backlash.

it absolves white people of having to look at themselves and recognize themselves and their favs are capable of and complicit to harm (anti-Blackness - which includes homomisia, transmisia, misogynoir, misogyny, ableism, racism). Season 3 is not for me. It’s for white people to be comfortable.

“What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it is necessary to have a 'n*****' in the first place, because I'm not a n*****. I'm a man. But if you think I'm a n*****, it means you need it.” - James Baldwin

“You never had to look at me. I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” - James Baldwin

[de8thm8rt]

it blows my fucking mind that someone could genuinely like the way paul was included in this episode. paul did not trust and could not stand lestat. there were hints that would paul would commit suicide, such as him overeating and having extra wine because he wanted to enjoy his last night on earth. eating all his favorite foods and indulging because he won’t get another chance. he wanted to see the sunrise with his brother like when they were little. he also wanted to ask louis who he trusted what the state of both louis’s and grace’s life were. to see if they would be alright without him.

that’s why he asks louis if he thinks levi truly loves grace. then he brings up louis getting married and asks him about his dealings with lestat. and when louis tells him he’s done with lestat. paul visibly relaxes, he’s assured that both his brother and sister are safe and in good hands. they’ll be fine without him, especially because paul knows the burdens he places on them. so he thinks that this would be in their best interest, that it’ll be okay.

he reminds louis one more time to stay away from lestat and calls him the devil.

the last thing he says to his brother is “i love you, louis” before walking off that roof

now paul isn’t appearing to his brother who he loved more than anyone in the world. instead he’s appearing to the white french man whom he thought was the devil and could not stand. not only does he appear to this man but he THANKS HIM. “for loving his brother the way he needed to be loved”

idk how you could watch the first season and then watch this fucking 60 car pile up and not wonder what fumes the writers were vigorously huffing.

the only thing this season excelled at was completely dismantling, destroying, and pissing on the ashes of the first two.

[de8thm8rt]

“thank you for loving him the way he needed to be loved.”

[brawlingdiscontent]

I have seen a lot of people responding to critiques of TVL with 'depiction doesn't equal endorsement' which, like, of course! This is media analysis 101. But conversely and equally obviously, depiction doesn't NOT equal endorsement. When determining endorsement or lack thereof what matters is the show's framing or approach to depiction (both intentional and unintentional).

There are like 10,000 things to say about this framing in TVL but for now I will focus on the extremely significant and outsized power of the image. Images are much more powerful than things like subtext. Whatever other messaging might going be on, when the image, over and over again, is that of the brutalized bodies of Black people (and ONLY Black people) on screen, that says and does something.

Depiction also always carries with it the risk of reification, of 'making real', and entrenching the existence of what it depicts. This is the foundation of the extremely well-established critique of realism and its political limits.

It also comes with a cost. Depiction can be violent. Watching racism, sexism, sexual abuse, etc., can wound, and it will wound certain groups more than others. This isn't to say that these things should never be depicted, but that creators should ask themselves "who is wounded? Is the wounding worth the point we're trying to convey?" Interesting that the creators chose not to depict Nicki burning or Lestat's severed head, but had no such hesitation, for example, in showing long, lingering, repeated shots of Claudia being reduced to ash.

I wish people would actually consider/engage with the critiques rather than dismissing them offhand with empty/ambiguous statements like this.

[pisc3sthings]

when people referred to Armand as a “gremlin,” it always made me feel uncomfortable. especially because he is a Brown character in the show. it implies he is a creature and it’s disgusting and racist to me. wanting him to go “full on gremlin.” what the fuck does that mean? it’s weird. it’s akin to people reducing Louis to a pimp.

[eyedident]

that post laying out the islamophobia and anti-asian sentiment was on point

another thing to add is that the bangle armand is wearing is a copper ayurvedic bracelet which the costume designer (a white english woman) said they gave to armand as a joke because it's supposed to bring balance and he's an unbalanced character. so the only time armand gets to be connected to anything indian/south asian is when it's about his parents selling him into slavery, a comment from lestat publicly humiliating him, or when it's mocking an ancient indian therapy

!!!

[bicreature]

You couldn't make this up. Rolin Jones 'hates writing about identity' and yet has was so desperate to adapt a book that's very introspective and all about identity. This actually explains a lot about this season fixating on the rockstar part and ignoring Lestat's backstory and most of the psychological and interpersonal dimension that make up the majority of the book. Rolin saying stuff like he didn't want to include much of Nicki stuff because they already kind of hit those beats with Louis. All the character focused scenes being presented as an exposition dump. It's all about plot mechanics and entertaintment for him. Rolin literally didn't care about the actual core of the story and was resentful for having to write about it at all

[six2vii]

IWTV is Target.

They made Louis/Claudia Black and hired Black writers and delivered two remarkable seasons of TV.

The country votes for that man, and they go from meaningful conversations on race to blatantly racist storytelling.

I clicked on IWTV because Jacob Andersons face was on the title card. Point Blank Period. That movie was boring as fuck. I won’t interested, but that beautiful face. You did that and it was a good thing, the best thing, and now you want to switch up. Bitch, fuck you for life.

Y’all white folks don’t got to burn a cross and call you the n word to show you they hate you. In fact, nowadays, it’s micro-aggression after micro-aggression after micro-aggression. I need y’all to know that.

That goes for transphobia, ableism, and misogyny too.

[roanlovesvampires]

ok so tvl turned their one brown main character into a terrorist who preys on their "innocent little white guy 🥺"

and then used Claudia AND Armand to act out the writers' own anti-black racist agenda

all while NEVER having the white characters confront their own biases or be in any conversations regarding race

meanwhile there's an entirely incomprehensible A plot and a powerpoint presentation of devil's minion

and they expected us to like this shit????

[meanmisscharles]

I know people just want to chat about it, but I am not discussing, or attempting to parse what dialog WASN'T intentionally drowning in antiblackness when 90% of it assuredly IS intentional.

You might as well be picking through a toilet full of shit for something you can rinse off to make edible again.

It's all invalid for purposes of making a legitimate point.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi Mrs. CBC! First of all I am sending you love for all the work you do on this platform, and sending you strength for putting up with all the BS that you do ❤️ Secondly I hope you don't mind this use of your inbox but there is a cause I'd like to share which is close to me.

(Warning for brief police violence mention)

In May 2024, the University of California, Irvine, had the pro-Palestine encampment there dismantled and 47 people were arrested, some quite brutally. Among them was Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, professor of African American studies at UCI. Some may recognize her from a news clip about the arrests, where as she was being detained, she called out the chancellor of UCI for spending money that could have gone toward scholarships and housing on defending genocide.

That same chancellor has a personal, racist vendetta against Dr. Willoughby-Herard, and has decided to pursue disciplinary action against her, even though the charges for protesting were dismissed. She is now on academic suspension and has received a letter of censure for five years.

This leaves her without healthcare while she has chronic health issues, some related to her 2024 arrest. I wanted to share this fundraiser which goes toward her ongoing medical and legal needs: https://chuffed.org/project/156203-mutual-legal-aid-for-tiffany 

People can support her by continuing to support Palestine. At the same time I think it's also important for a great Black feminist academic to be able to thrive and continue her work within the corrupt UC system and in the very anti-Black Irvine area especially. Speaking of her work, people can find that here if they have access: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2ZgAGXAAAAAJ&hl=en

Thank you Ice and have a great day ❤️

Mutual Aid for Tiffany

Our colleague, friend, and justice-devoted loved one Tiffany is facing significant financial burdens as she defends herself against potentia

Thank you for sharing!!!!!

[sonderpoison]

YSEULT Freak (Remix) feat. JT

[creatingblackcharacters]

What do you think of people having a "preference" for certain ethnicities and races when it comes to dating like there was a trend like a year or to ago where (usually white) people would proudly talk about how much they love asian men (only the pale ones of course) and lightskin Black men but how they'd never date a dark skinned Black man

It always felt weird to me like wtf??

Yeah to me it's usually racist.

I feel like it's one thing to say "I prefer to date people of my race because I feel they will be more aware of my identity, my culture, and my struggles as a Black person". That checks out, because it's not aesthetic. I've always said that any person outside of my race that I'd date would have to come already packed with antiracism and awareness of antiblackness. I'm not teaching nobody shit about how to see me as a human while claiming to love me 😭 nothing romantic about that at all. Otherwise, I'll date anybody!

But a lot of times these preferences are just fetishes. They love the IDEA of what this particular race or identity means or what they'll "do" for you. Black women being more sexual in bed, East Asian women being cute and submissive, Indigenous women being "wild", Muslim women being "obedient, but secret freaks", white women being a "sign of success and listening to men more". Black men having big penises, Asian men (and women fr) having more money and "prettier kids".

And then there are the ones that go even deeper and make their like of one group predicated on the hate of their own. It's so common with misogynoir that it's ridiculous. As if I'm supposed to care that you prefer white women over me. While also being hypocritical about the women dating outside of the race. Yeah, it's a long and convoluted ass conversation but it almost comes back around to ye olde racism.

[fluoresensitives]

You can't escape, you can't win as a Black person. Real life is miserable, fiction is miserable. The fandom that claims to be an escape for gay and trans people is virulently anti-Black. And when you say, "wow, this is miserable, is there any justice, is there anything we can enjoy, can we participate in the world?", everyone and their klan grandmother screams NO and gets mad at YOU for ruining their fun.

I guess we should've known better, right? No matter the age, no matter the genre, that there is no fun to be had in Blackness, not if you're the entertainment, not if you're the lynched and branded body. Fuck the actual fuck out of everybody.

[meanmisscharles]

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

There is no "accurate" writing of racialized elements when the entire thing is coming from a place of hatred and resentment.

[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.

[vitiligo-is-not-a-trend]

Some of the repetitive questions here made me think "Do y'all need a visual guide?" So I did it.

If I did any mistakes in interpreting your many answers, please say! I will edit anything I need to for it to be actually respectful & accurate.

OH MY GOD THANK YOU THATS PERFECT

Do you mind if I add it to the FAQ (with credit of course <3)