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I don't get why people keep saying Louis doesn't love Armand. It doesn't work if he doesn't!

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episode four isn’t even officially out in most of the world and the number of vile racist takes i’ve seen about louis and armand’s park scene is already crazy.

this episode has armand explain to louis that both his current name and the name he had before that, “amadeo,” were forced upon him: “amadeo” by a man who bought him from a brothel and then “donated” him for his sexual services to his friends, “armand” by the coven that burned down the only home he had at that point and forced him into their ranks.

he ends his story asking louis “who am i, louis? am i my history that has happened to me? am i my job i do not want?”

in the scene in the park, louis first offers him a way out of the “job [he] does not want” and, then, calls him by his birth name, “arun,” the only thing armand has from before his “history that has happened to [him],” the only name that wasn’t forced upon him by an european master, a name from his homeland. and surely we all can see how louis, a black man from the united states, might see the value in reconnecting with one’s roots after being ripped from them and sold into slavery, right? and why he might want to offer armand freedom from a role that was forced upon him? right?

can there be a less charitable interpretation of the scene? sure. is louis being manipulative? i mean, it’s what jacob said in the episode insider, let’s run with it! but to jump straight from louis using armand’s birth name in this scene to saying that he called him by his “slave name,” that he was “acting like a pimp again,” or that “the plantation owner jumped out” (all real quotes) is, in my opinion, fucking insane.

smarter people than me have already said this, over and over, but we keep coming back to the same tired, disingenous argument. book!lewis was a plantation owner. and book!armand was already a sex slave. sex trafficking and rape were structural to the slave plantation system, and yet there were never widespread arguments about what it meant for lewis and armand’s relationship that lewis was a slaver. so, to act like there’s some entirely new imbalance or conflict in the show, where louis was a pimp, which wasn’t present in the books, is at best very fucking weird, and at worst a willfully racist whitewashing of the history of the transatlantic slave trade.

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Possible Racism & Colorism in the IWTV Fandom

I’ve been noticing a lot of things lately in the IWTV fandom that come off as racist or colorist to me. However, I’m white, so to fans who are people of color, please feel free to comment on this post and share your thoughts on this. I'd really like to know what you think.

The insistence that Louis and Claudia must both be lying about Lestat being abusive to them. Two black characters have said they were abused by a white character, and some fans are determined to make them either be flat out lying or for it all to be some scheme of Armand’s (another person of color). I understand that people are disappointed in the show’s portrayal of Lestat and that the writers made him so horribly abusive, but to say that both Louis and Claudia must be lying about it seems to have some strong racist undertones to me. 

The vilification of Armand to make Lestat and Loustat look better. Armand is being accused of things the audience doesn't actually have proof of, and these accusations and theories are treated by many fans as facts, because if everything is Armand’s fault and he’s brainwashed Louis, then Lestat – the white character – wasn’t actually as bad and it’s all just a trick of Armand’s. This feels especially racist because Armand is the only South Asian main character on the show, and quite possibly one of the only (if not the only) Southeast Asian vampire I personally can recall having ever seen in any media. And I've watched/read a lot of vampire stories, guys. Also, Armand is one of the darkest-skinned characters on the show (Claudia even comments that Armand has darker skin than Louis), so there could be colorism involved here as well. A lot of this seems to stem from people preferring Loustat to Loumand, and while some people may simply prefer one ship to another because of the way they perceive the dynamic and chemistry between the two, others may be behaving this way because they want Louis to be with their "white fav" i.e. Lestat rather than with a man of color i.e. Armand. Many may not even fully realize the underlying bias they have but that doesn't mean it's not there.

The criticism of Delainey Hayles’s casting as Claudia. Certain comments people have made come off as colorism because Delainey has darker skin than Bailey Bass. There was one in particular about how Delainey didn’t look “innocent enough” to be Claudia in comparison to Bailey, which seems to stem from people thinking darker-skinned black women are less innocent than lighter-skinned black women. Delainey has been doing a fantastic job as Claudia and doesn't deserve this treatment.

The lack of commentary on Nicki using a racist slur to refer to Armand – g*psy. Yes, that slur was probably a pretty common way many people referred to Romani people back then, so the writers were being historically accurate, but it’s still a slur and people have spent more time talking about how they think Armand was “writing Lesmand fanfic” than examining the fact that Nicki was racist toward him and the kind of effect that might have had on Armand. Nicki could have said, “do you know this person, Lestat?” Instead, he said, “do you know this g*psy?” which is dehumanizing and shows a clear bias against Romani people & South Asian people who may have been perceived as Romani in places like France during that time period (we don’t actually know much about Armand’s exact ethnic background on the show yet so he may or may not actually be Romani). To top it off, the people who claim Armand is lying about his past with Lestat sometimes have implied that he may have been lying about Nicki as well, and therefore may have lied about Nicki being racist toward him. Another example of fans claiming people of color are lying about maltreatment they've faced from white characters. Why aren't more people talking about this?

The coddling and "woobification" of Louis by certain fans. So many fans are determined to give Louis no power in his relationships or agency in his own story despite Jacob Anderson saying that Louis has a lot of power in his relationships. Everything has to be someone else’s fault. Armand has to be controlling him. Louis has to have been brainwashed to not remember what really happened. He has to be a victim in all his relationships. This is honestly a bizarre way to treat his character. Many fans are not letting Louis be complex, powerful, nuanced, or flawed, and oftentimes they don't even seem to see him for who he really is. I don’t know for sure if this one is truly racist per se, but it’s definitely bothersome and I'd really like to know what other people, particularly people of color, think about this treatment of his character by certain fans. 

Everyone, feel free to reblog and add any other instances of fandom racism & colorism you’ve seen. We need to talk about this kind of stuff.

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Except that's not what I meant and you know it!

Scary how so many people in the tag think because they have read the books and "understand the characters better" that they can rule everyone else's opinions as wrong and theirs as the truth.

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Scary how so many people in the tag think because they have read the books and "understand the characters better" that they can rule everyone else's opinions as wrong and theirs as the truth.

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Think the way people talk about Armand on here is quite disturbing, actually.

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as an old school hollyoaks fan (aka 2012, aka “chemistry in the kitchen”), new hollyoaks fans need to realise that they will kill anyone off. for no reason whatsoever, a character WILL be dying. gay, straight, who cares they are going to be DEAD. 

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to me it's really absurd that rafa is like 'wow he was a shitty friend to iris and he has to come to terms with that' my dude you've been a shitty partner and fiance for hiding this? and tk doens't even get to be angry about it?

i don't know what to tell you! you are absolutely welcome to your opinion, you're not going to catch me arguing that people don't have the right to feel however they feel about soap opera twists on the wee woo show. i just...i get it. from a character perspective i totally get it. i get why carlos lied, i get why he kept lying, i get why his focus is more on being a shitty friend (not maintaining the relationship with iris which could have hurt her) than being a shitty partner (keeping this secret which in his head was only hurting him). i get it!

that being said tk would have been well within his rights to be pissed, but he chooses to be forgiving instead because he loves carlos and he understands what a deeply generous and loving and sweet and also insecure and anxious and occasionally dishonest person he's marrying, and he chooses to love ALL of him not just the nice shiny parts

and i just love that!! i love stories about messy imperfect people choosing to love and forgive and grow with one another more than pretty much any other kind!!!!!

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just finished greywaren and i feel weird now idk what to do

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📸 rawithamju

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📸: rawithamju

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being chronically ill and reading these books is a wild ride

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thinking about how declan got to make the life in boston ronan was hoping for:

and in the end it all boiled down to this:

and it’s not that ronan was right in what he is trying to do, but he’s not completely wrong either. he’s not thinking about future impacts - as hennessey says, he very much thinks like a non-dreamer - but he is thinking of a world with no nightwash, where he’s just some normal guy who can spend the night at his boyfriend’s dorm without manifesting murder crabs. is he completely right? no. is he understandable? i think so. it’s so obvious how much harvard affected his already deep rooted mental health issues because he kept coming back to the murder crabs again and again. they were a defining moment for him, and he doesn’t think he has a future so long as that kind of event is still a possibility.

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When you think about it, the nightwash (Ronan's chronic illness), is at fault for all of this. He sees it as this thing that is keeping him isolated at the Barns, unable to grow up, move on, to be closer to his boyfriend and start a new, happier life. What's at fault for the nightwash? The weakened ley lines! So, reasonably, it's the lack of ley line energy preventing Ronan from making something new out of his life, so why wouldn't he want to do everything he could to change this? And, now, he's seeing how it's keeping other dreamers from doing the same? I mean, can you blame him, really?

Obviously, his isolation, trauma, and mental illness all play a part. But why wouldn't he want to fix the very thing holding him back from living?

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Seeing a few comments (mainly on twitter) and this might be an unpopular opinion, but I didn’t think TK/Carlos were needed tonight. We got the immediate aftermath of their house burning down (and it was some good stuff) and I didn’t think it made sense to have their storyline in the episode today. 

There was already a lot going on and I don’t think it would have worked well. Would it have been nice to have a bit more aftermath? Sure, but that’s just because I love the characters! This episode was truly for Tommy and Gina Torres.

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i think the amount of pynch/ronan and adam thinking about each other in MI is just perfect really. you can really tell how much they care for the other. so pynch fans y’all don’t have to worry :)

What this anon said! 

Not as much as the first book, but enough to tide us over! And the things we do get are perfect!