[verstopia]

may. 19yo. she/her -> twitter strawpage

this was mostly a stranger things/will byers blog, currently not very active but I repost stuff about iwtv, teen wolf, hunger games, and the pitt from time to time.

[fairycosmos]

my dead wife. the ad free internet

[verstopia]

one would think the whole thing about loumand's relationship and the power dynamics was that even though armand gave up power sexually he was still in control of the relationship, esp due to his power and age which he used to control and keep louis with him several times, but I guess not

sorry I should've known, obviously louis' inherent pimp gene and armand's sex slave gene activated each other in the relationship, that makes sense

[yusiyomogi]

this is how i see every fandom discourse about louis:

bonus:

[yusiyomogi]

let's add another bonus actually

[yusiyomogi]

oh

[coldeveryseason]

also we should absolutely question the show's choice to remove gabrielle, magnus and marius' overt antiblackness from the tvl book when the writers got armand out here acting like he's auditioning for kkk grand wizard. clearly the show isn't shying away from depicting antiblack violence considering the treatment of black characters in the past two episodes, so the refusal to depict gabriella, marius and magnus as the white supremacists they were in the source material, is a blatant tell- the writers are protective of their white characters, even the antagonists, and don't want them to seem "too" evil (which tracks for white and nonblack liberals acting like being called racist is worse than being racist.) and this clearly isn't a concern they have when it comes to the characters of color- armand has for 2 seasons now enacted forms of explicit violence inflicted on enslaved black people- louis and claudia's cut ankle tendons, the entire public humiliation of the trial, claudia's burning, louis' head on a spike, coercing him into a performance of self-debasement and contrition and branding his body- and claudia calls her black father a slave in a bioessentialist, derogatory context and expresses a level of internalized antiblackness she was never even hinted at feeling when she was alive. in both scenes, the narrative is much harsher on louis than on lestat and the nonblack writers go into extreme detail in their antiblack dialogue and racialized, borderline pornographic depiction of louis' torture. but gabriella is portrayed shallowly complimenting louis' beauty when realistically she would be calling him slurs when talking about him to lestat, magnus' "master race" aspirations and fixation on white supremacist beauty standards for how he chose his victim pool and "heir" aren't addressed, and marius' racial politics ("rotten boy", the whitewashed portrait of armand- we know he's racist, the show just hasn't acknowledged it and intentionally excluded the parts of tvl where he expresses that racism when talking to lestat) remain an elephant in the room. and ofc the way the writers are tryna be like "see lestat isn't racist, black people love him" in-universe through characters like merrick and paul (lol. lmao even) and tryna overwrite or dance around every textual example of lestat's antiblackness is so transparent in its clumsiness.

[jeunesseoubliee]

A gothic horror show with a chilling twist: the horror is reserved exclusively for the Black characters.

Are you into watching Black characters suffer for no reason other than shock value? Are you into watching Black characters be tortured, then made to apologize to their abusers? Are you into Black characters being told that slavery is in their DNA? Are you into watching Black characters be branded like cattle by their torturer and abuser? Are you into watching Black characters be brutalized, humiliated, and blamed for their own suffering? Do you enjoy victim-blaming? What about abuse apologia? Are you drawn to narratives that seem more interested in excusing these things than condemning them?

If so, then The Vampire Lestat, streaming on AMC+, is the show for you. You'll love it.

And don't feel bad. After all, it's just fiction, and fiction has nothing to do with the real world. We all live in a vacuum, right?

[rosecrystal]

This amount of individualism is exactly whats gonna kill us all btw

[ashintheairlikesnow]

"Going a couple hours without eating a single kind of food? No thanks, I would rather kill a child" is such a wildly horrifying take to see MULTIPLE people proudly stating.

[holewithoutorgans]

Rolin Jones would've figured out a way to have Louis apologize to Santiago's ghost if Ben Daniel's would've agreed to come back.

[gaypeople]

people focusing on the writers feeding them with “transfem lestat” while ignoring the vehement antiblackness they're putting the black gay man through kinda perfectly encapsulates the priorities of white queer fandom

[heartedrivalry]

the difference between louis' unreliable narration and lestats is that with louis we had a framing device that was anchored in reality and daniel was constantly asking clarifying questions or finding holes in the story and we got to see louis in present day go through journey of examining how he remembers his past and what hes choosing to ignore or gloss over. the show never made you forget that this was a story being told from a limited and bias perspective. but in tvl, we lose that framing device. we are technically listening to lestats recount of the events of tvl on the "failures" recording but there is absolutely nothing besides the occasional bit of narration and daniels "youre listening to the failures" twice an episode to remind us. we have not revisited the auction. they promotional material and interviews really gave the impression that this was gonna utilize the format of a documentary/concert film much more heavily than it did. it drops that approach right away and settles on only the occasional reminder that everything were seeing is technically from lestats pov. but we also see things that happen way out perspective of lestat. how does lestat know about the conversations between armand and daniel? how does lestat know that louis and regina went on a pedal boat at night? how does lestat know about the conversation that larry had with that fan? in iwtv, we were deliberately tied to louis' perspective and whenever the story reached beyond that it because we had things like claudias diaries or armand chiming in or daniels recording from that night in '73. and those perspectives raised questions about how they lined up with louis' story and who was telling the real truth. but in tvl everything that is technically lestats retelling is just framed as the objective, present day reality. nothing in the show is asking me to question if what im seeing is the full truth or something tainted by lestats feelings. the closest we get is that interview where he talks about nicky BUT even then that is an interview told WITHIN lestats retelling of events. i feel like they had such an obvious yet clever route to go with adapting tvl and completely tossed it out the window.

[verstopia]

ldpdl being this generations bonnie bennett

[inyourbackpocketisbutterflies]

all this explicit body horror only being reserved for black bodies in this show on top of the racially charged language and the bastardization of the black characters idk anymore man

[verstopia]

actually disgusting writing

[finalgirlwillbyers]

dropping another deadweight show

[verstopia]

[glitteringpoet1685]

They somehow managed to make the scene where Louis reads Claudia's diary to Bruce even worse this episode. Because now we know that scene exists purely for Lestats benefit. It was never meant to be genuine engagement with how Louis violated Claudia's privacy and autonomy (not even getting into the discussion of whether reading the account of her rape to her rapist was in character or not). The only point of Louis' involvement in that scene was so they could throw it back at him later by him saying a line so heinous and out of character that even Louis had to mention so after. Like so many things this season, the diary scene and the seance actually had very little to do with Claudia or Louis but rather exist for cheap shock value and to absolve Lestats actions at the total expense of Louis' character.

[glitteringpoet1685]

AMC really struck gold with the unreliable narrator idea because now people will insist that any flaw in the storytelling is actually a genius premeditated reflection of a fallible narrator, any pacing issues are actually a genius premeditated reflection of a characters psyche, and any lack of character development is actually a genius premeditated reflection on a characters refusal to face their own trauma, and having cheap looking production is actually a genius premeditated reflection of a characters memories, and any unwarranted deviation from the source material is actually a genius premeditated lie that will be proven false at some unspecified point, and any poor handling of sensitive subjects is actually a genius premeditated commentary on the characters own failings, etc, etc.