#Iwtv fandom racism

[tgirl-armand]

the funniest thing of all is that even if everything lestat said was 100 per cent infallibly true I just cannot shake the feeling that if louis was a white women the whole “im gonna choke you like you did our child” thing would get tons of yasss queen slayyyy kill your abuser we love to see itttt! but he isn’t so. it doesn’t

[saintarmand]

ppl saying "talking about fandom racism is a cover it's actually all about shipping/stanning/hating the books" are projecting so hard like that's all THEY care about so they can't imagine others having different priorities. ofc it's also a blatant manipulation tactic to distract from the real issue but i do think these people have genuine trouble imagining someone might actually care about racism or other real world issues more than blorbo from my shows or whatever

[positively--speculative]

It will never cease to frustrate me that I actually went to school and studied these things. I stayed up late into many nights completing analytical essays surrounding these topics. And I know going to school isn't for everyone and not everyone has access to that option. I also know there are other ways to learn about this stuff outside of sitting in the classroom.

But the audacity of people who have no actual interest in doing the work, whether that be in a formal educational setting or on their own, feel so smug throwing terms like "unreliable narrator" around without actually knowing what they mean while insulting people who actually know what they're talking about is maddening. The way they're so proud of being casually racist toward BLACK people who actually know what they're talking about. There is just no better example of how the privilege keeps these people dumb and happy to reward one another for their stupidity.

[ca-suffit]

Okay so Jacob did a podcast with Naomi that was released today and on it Naomi said someone at AMC told her "dont ask Jacob about race" she went ahead and ignored them as she should because that's insane and stupid but it's not lost on me that she was then replaced by a white woman who asks the most useless questions in the world. Nevermind AMC granting access to weird racist pedo apologists like Maven who dont even like the show but still to get to show their whole ass to an acclaimed director like Levan Akin. And a gaggle of other white interviewers/journalists who either are utterly useless or downright racist/antiblack and weird in their articles. Something incredibly nasty is at work and even if I sort of trust Rolin, I will never, ever trust AMC and I hope the higher ups go straight to hell.

jfc. thank u for telling me / us.

it starts at 1:05:25ish for the amc talk

[dreadfuldevotee]

Like Loumand-hate vexing aside, there actually is something truly insideous about reducing the complete absence of Jacob & Assad interviews and even questions pertaining to eachother this promo cycle to "they don't like Loumand". It not about Loustat vs. Loumand, or which actors are insane about eachother, It's the fact that this season hinges on the rise and fall of the relationship of queer black/brown men and AMC and interviewers alike sidelined that dynamic the entire time. You would not know from press that Assad is co-leading and the only time Jacob and Assad even talk about eachother is in reference to the ep 5 argument being their first scene together. Like, it would be willfully ignorant to ignore how Lestat is as present in this season because producers had no faith in the strength of the rest of the cast, and how Jacob and Assad are only ever paired up with their white co-workers who simply are not as essential to the season as they are to eachother.

In a show about toxic relationships and the way trauma lingers and effects one's ability to interact with another- There is so much to talk about between Louis and Armand. It is not only a diservice to a large chunk of the performances being given, but also to the story itself. I can sit here and wax about how these 77 years together are still worthy of discussion and careful consideration but the truth is- I wouldn't be writing this post if one or both of them were white. If Armand were still that redheaded russian boy we would have a wealth of promo and playing up the romance at the heart of their relationship all the way to the divorce hearings. But because our leading men are Black and South Asian, instead POC are asking you once again to please give a fuck about us even when a white person isn't around for you to latch on to.

[pretty-weird-ideas]

This is so egregious that I can’t let it stand, the large IWTV blog Nalyra-dreaming is liking posts about hating critical race theory and the post she liked states that affirmative action is the only systemically racist system still around while calling fans who are upset that they were called ableist slurs, anti-white and intellectually disabled. When people noticed this last night she attempted to block people who she knew saw the racist posts and remove her likes to hide this. But I saw them several times over, and so did many others.

Also here's proof that Nalyra actively interacts with this user and on THEIR OWN BLOG and has at least allowed cosmicjoke to stand on the idea that anti-whiteness is real on her own blog.

I'm pretty sure Nalyra blocked me because I told CosmicJoke to not call people slurs and a reblog of the “antiwhite” meltdown they had with a bad-quality Walter White image. At least proving that she was looking at the post she liked.

No way on black history month did you think we wouldn’t check to see who liked and defended posts with “Affirmative action is the only current form of systemic racism”.

I saw her do this on several occasions over this week and simply asked others to check on people liking racist posts and reblogging my disdain for OP’s usage of slurs and antiblack dog whistles. I never implied that I was talking about her but these posts scared her enough to block me.

This is about the 3rd time I found them secretly liking genuinely racist treatment of fans she dislikes. This is a political stance, affirmative action, the belief in antiwhiteness, and critical race theory are not IWTV topics, this isn’t a whimsical like and scroll, these posts are all political stances that have nearly nothing to do with IWTV outside of what people were being targeted by the slurs in the first place. And the “what people” seem to be black fans that at some point in time she believes deserved to be attacked.

Targeting fans you don’t like doesn’t mean the speech should be endorsed. Anyone with half a pint of morals wouldn't be endorsing an actively hostile person slinging around altright talking points. And I will question why these posts are liked. Call us names all you like, but the second you start using the words of a reactionary racist who calls people disabled… maybe that should give you pause. Yeah?

A large IWTV blog believes in or at least is rubbing shoulders with an antiAffirmative action, slur slinging, reverse racism reactionary so that she can weaponize them against people she disagrees with.

At best Nalyra is okay with commenting, liking, and comforting racists in asks who she wields as weapons against people she disagrees with. At worst, Nalyra genuinely believes in antiwhiteness, antiAffirmative Action, and actively is okay with calling fans she dislikes slurs.

The racism on display here makes me sick. And it’s really telling how this blog feels comfortable patting these people on the back in comment sections.

Say it with your chest, but don’t mislead people who might disagree into following someone who believes this shit.

As respectfully as possible, you make my skin crawl and I’m tired of not stepping to what I really wanted to say. When I make posts about “check who likes what” never in my entire life did I expect to catch an account this large flagrantly using a racist reactionary in such a sad manner.

This is the last straw for me, you can’t keep liking explicitly racist posts and then answering their asks in private and hope fans you strategically discredit and already dislike don’t say anything.

1+1 is 2, liking and a post saying “I will call people I dislike slurs over fictional characters” can only be read so many ways.

I dislike a lot of people, I still wouldn’t defend and like a random fan’s ability to use SLURS and racist tactics on them. I wouldn’t do the same to you as you do to us.

Also some way to hide your attack dog… by having them flash in your own comment section and saying THIS

Racism is a slur… you guys… and this person is not at all a danger to fandom spaces.

[thedailydescent]

So after others have established before and throughout Season 2 that portraying Armand as a sexually undesirable man who can't satisfy Louis, with Louis constantly thinking about Lestat any time they get physical and wishing it were him instead, and how Lestat would NEVER touch Armand with a ten-foot pole, ew, is racist and a negative portrayal of South Asian men, I now see people are getting comfortable making 'funny' posts/edits again about Louis needing to be saved by Lestat's dick and "manliness". Loumand suffers from bed death, not because Armand killed his daughter or Louis is grieving, but because Armand isn't a real man and can't top.

[casually-slips-into-coma]

“stop making iwtv about race!!!”

girl… gonna hold your hand when i say this… but iwtv is about race. explicitly so, actually. and its actually really concerning that u didnt get that bc they are not subtle about it.

[doublycharming-tetraquark]

Seriously, why do fandoms think it's okay to attack black people for not agreeing with you? Why do you feel so emboldened to be nasty to real people over their opinions on fictional characters. This is not even the first time this has happened, you do this every other week. Go outside and touch grass and leave black bloggers alone!

[sukibenders]

Me, watching people villainize and hate show!Louis and Claudia for in ways that they didn't in regards to book and movie!Louis and Claudia;

[saintarmand]

fellow white people, being called racist will not kill you btw. even if you don't understand why you were called that. even if it's accompanied by rude words. just take a deep breath. you will literally be fine. if you wanna avoid being called racist in the future, you might want to look up some ways to start learning more about racism and antiracism and all that, and start thinking before you speak, etc. but even if you're too lazy to do all that, just remember: being called racist will not kill you. so stop acting like it does.

[positively--speculative]

Going to add to a previous post I made that I'm too lazy to search for at the moment--But fandom's shipping addiction is messing up the fandom experience.

Like, it's fine to ship your faves. I have a number of ships I love--both canon and crack. But I feel like people are measuring the quality and/or potential of media--written or visual--based on whether or not there are "shippable" characters. And sorry, not everything is about shipping, and even if there are characters to be shipped, that doesn't always mean the writers intended that to be the center of their work.

This is going to sound mean, but if this is how you measure the quality of what you watch or read, then there are going to be things that you just are not mature enough to handle. When it comes to IWTV, a number of people are having a hard time because they're not used to accepting the nuances of abusive relationships, and that is preventing them from engaging intellectually with what's there. Lestat cannot really be abusive because he *loves* Louis, so Louis has to be a liar and Lestat is the real victim. They don't understand--and *refuse* to understand--the racist implications of accusing a Black victim of lying about their abuse, and they hold very Disneyfied, simplistic ideas about love. And they will clutch their limited perceptions so tightly to simplify something so complex just to be comfortable shipping their favorite characters. Doing anything else, like accepting their favorite ship is toxic, makes them feel like it makes them bad people, so they will bend reality for the sake of being able to pat themselves on the back and reassure themselves that they're still good people.

But if you actually engage with the show properly as writers intended, they *will* try to push you out. Some of my favorite bloggers here barely participate and contribute anymore because the act of talking about what is actually there was too triggering for people who would rather lie to themselves about what's actually there.

[ca-suffit]

seeing the extra bit of the fight in 2x7, under a clear attempt to manipulate a (mostly white) audience against louis and claudia ("aggressive, dangerous" black characters), did not rly change anything about the fight. all the ppl saying "doesn't louis also choke claudia" to call him a hypocrite are fcking weird as hell. that scene also happened *after* this fight anyway.

examine why ur ready to blame the black character the most. the power dynamics between lestat and louis were still not the same. louis did not know that but lestat did. ur asking why did louis threaten to kill lestat for something he does to claudia later when u should be examining why lestat dropped louis in response to something he knew wasn't any kind of real threat. it was an emotional pain he felt at louis "choosing" claudia over him but we all know louis was never going to physically do shit to lestat. look at what lestat did to louis tho.

u also need to get comfortable with the fact that ppl do these things out of a warped idea of "luv" and not wanting to lose someone. it's not something born from hate and a desire to hurt someone cuz u *don't* care. it's not something fake the writers put in bcuz they don't understand the character of lestat. they understand him rly well tbh. read the books again maybe. he did it bcuz he could, bcuz he's the white partner, bcuz he's more powerful as a vampire as well, but it was also coming from his own insecurities that he was never going to be *enough* for anyone else. it's *all* of those things. look at the ways armand is also mirroring a lot of this but doing it as a brown man, someone who can't so easily be loud and abrasive like lestat. someone who is used to being groomed and framing every relationship like that since.

this is not about picking sides or wiping everything away "well they're all monsters lol" shit. it's about noticing what is right in front of u. *clearly* right in front of u. look at the power imbalance louis is facing across all of his relationships. a lot of confusion I'm seeing about him would make sense if u put that one piece into place and stop looking for reasons he's just stupid or the "real" abuser or whatever the fuck. he's said and done hurtful shit too but the fandom *never* wanting to say he's a victim and giving all those tears to lestat instead is rly a fucking choice. this was not happening here before the race swap btw.

[sleepynegress]

Your post about Loustat paralleling Ruby and Christina makes so much sense. I haven’t rewatched lovecraft in a while though what specifically would you say makes them relate?

Whew! Where to start. I feel I probably need to play catch up for Ruby/Christina's dynamic on Lovecraft Country because that's probably the one fewer people who follow me are familiar with so... This is Ruby and Christina:

Ruby is a rock/blues singer in the 1950's Chicago, and like our man Louis, she has done most of the work holding up her family. Also, like Louis, a lot of the challenges she faces are deeply racist, and because of her gender full of misogynoir as well, more than today because of the past setting of the story... Her shade and body type also come into play when compared to what her sister, who is lighter-skinned and thin could get away with in life. Christina is the daughter of the leader of a centuries-old white male-dominated magical cult, in which she is clearly the most talented in wielding magic but she has no say-so and cannot inherit the same privileges because of sexism, something that is *always* intersected with racism which that cult has deeply ingrained traditions in. Despite it all, these two fall in love. The biggest similarities I see in Christina and Lestat are...

both... are not just white but white-white blonde hair blue-eyes.

have a measure of self-loathing because of some trauma devolved from whiteness (Lestat stalked and tortured and piled into a bunch corpsed reflections of himself) and (Christina always considered a "protected" possession beneath white men and not an equal because of her gender)

are powerful supernatural beings, a wizard (I just feel that's the more likely adjective over witch for her) and a vampire

are narcissists

woo and manipulate, seduce, their partners into being with them, by lending their own privilege to give them protection or higher status, via whiteness

both are desperate to connect with their Black partner in ways that are impossible because of innate privilege deferential w/in the times they live and their own psychological shortcomings - Lestat opening the relationship and Christina going through the pain of a "lynching" to try to understand Ruby's day-to-day fear

are ultimately toxic to their partner and all other healthier relationships they have - Ruby's family especially Leti and Louis' family, most importantly Claudia

genuinely love their partner but just don't have the capacity or ability due to past traumas, narcissism, and that huge gulf in empathy for their very different lives.

The biggest similarities between Louis and Ruby are.. that they are broken by racism and the responsibilities of existing and maintaining for others while they are invisible in their plight. Both are uniquely beautifully human, vulnerable beyond what any other people in their lives "see" and that makes them both entrancing and vulnerable to the Lestat and Christina.

These are both queer interracial dynamics that take a really empathic and honest eye to render well, especially in this day and age. Both of these cultural spaces are riddled with discomfort, judgment, and fear, which mostly lead to dishonest depictions; and self-censoring, but they have subverted that for the most part.

Both I would say have been exceptionally well done and if really looked at critically beyond the chemistry and romance, I do think some interesting wider sociological conclusions/implications could be gathered from them. I think that's in part because of the freedom of the genre space. When it's supernatural or fantastical in some way, often the heavier issues are rendered more honestly. I'd absolutely love to read a dissertation really breaking it down.

[pretty-weird-ideas]

Harassment Against Black Blogs Over My Post

After I made my post about racist blogs in the IWTV fandom, unrelated blogs have been intentionally harassed in my stead to continue a harassment campaign against THEM and also keep away from having to do work to harass and discredit me.

As I have said before, come on, hit me. Don't act silly. Hit me. I said nalyra-dreaming is a racist for the fact that she liked and defended a racist post regarding affirmative action and reverse racism. ME. I posted that of my own volition in the comfort of my own home. Deflecting with "Random black blogs that AREN'T this person said this" wake up, I said it.

"Well, the racism allegations are a deflection because this OTHER black blog is conspiring to-"

You're a goofy motherfucker and it doesn't suit you. Take the clown costume off, you've worn it for so long that it's gotten musty.

If you want to hit someone, hit me. It's very obvious that these bloggers are deciding between:

Start digging on a blog that has nothing to dig for

Continue a harassment campaign that's already happened against black blogs with minimal effort or explanation as to why they are getting hit still

You are forgetting that I made these statements, that I have posted about fandom racism, and that I have not gotten involved in any of this. And that was intentional, racists like we are seeing today (white, nonblack, and sufferers of internalized hatred) are now pointing to "ship wars" to deflect from real-life racist political beliefs that have NOTHING to do with fiction. I stay FAR away from that shit on purpose, with the intent that people would have nothing to deflect to when the going gets rough. I follow black fans who are antiracist regardless of their shipping opinions, and regardless of what they think in regards to fandom.

Like I said in the original post, I would never let someone do to them, as they have done to me and other black fans. I would not sit up there and let fans start a real racist political grift so that I can get one-up on black fans I do not like or disagree with. I cut that shit down fast.

So instead of digging on me, to deflect, they would rather find other users and drag them and hope it kicks up enough of a stink that users forget the posts that started it all this week.

160 notes on my post about this subject, 300+ on others, and suspiciously someone comes out with a hitlist of mostly black fans that they already dislike to deflect. It was because it's advantageous to attack blogs that they already didn't like and had beef with.

Did hundreds of people suddenly become unable to research or read things for themselves when they liked and reblogged?

Or are we fully investing in the grift that black anti-racists just puppet around white people using "White guilt" along with the reverse racism song and dance?

[thedailydescent]

Looking at a lot of Loustat shippers and how they view/talk about Louis, is making me think of the BtVS fandom, the first fandom I joined when I was 16/17.

Anyway, a lot of the Spuffy shippers were out there calling Buffy derogatory names, saying SHE was the actual abusive one in the relationship, writing the most vile essays/fanfiction about her needing to be brought down a peg and admit she was wrong and Spike was right, saying the show was boring without Spike, despite Buffy being the main character, could not talk about Buffy as a character separate from Spike, propping up James's acting skills over Sarah's, made it sound like Spike was a better parent to Dawn than Buffy was (?), saying that the other men she was in romantic relationships with were much more abusive than Spike, excusing Spike for basically all of his actions and woobifying him because of his trauma....

and then you'd have the more critical Spuffy/non-Spuffy shippers (mainly woc) pointing out the blatant misogyny and victim-blaming in this way of thinking, pointing out how Spike represents some of the worst aspects of racism and the patriarchy, both textually and subtextually, even providing scholarly articles and literature to back up their claims, and asking why do you even ship Spuffy if you hate Buffy? Which of course received extreme backlash and harassment from people racing to defend Spike themselves, saying, no of course they didn't hate Buffy, but Spike is more complex than you're making him sound, and no he's not a racist or hates women, he's actually a feminist and a punk/anarchist and doesn't kill based on race, you're just a vile sjw and an anti who loves ruining everyone else's fun.

Anyway. Why do you even ship Loustat if you hate Louis?