#in real life (the actresses) and knew what you've been doing they will absolutely HATE YOU

[lewyn-martell]

after s1, officially totally on board w/ iwtv. adored it much more than i thought. louis i am in awe of you. daniel i am in love with you. lestat you are the greatest little guy ever. armand your ways entrance me. i really really liked this show, but i want to point out some criticisms just once and then put them to bed.

back when s1 was airing i decided not to watch it because i knew how the story went and knew it would be a louis/lestat show and i never cared about it in the slightest. plus i saw the decision to age up both claudia and daniel the interviewer and i was very annoyed.

on claudia's end because you take away an incredibly fucked up situation that unfortunately is immensely resonant. being trapped in a body you can't do anything about to change. having an terrible relationship with your own sexuality because of it since you are inevitably at odds with the attraction you want other people to have for you and that is not something anyone can control. how to reconcile with being with someone that's attracted to what you absolutely hate about yourself? something that could make you see them as a pedophile? am i just a fetish? maybe people aren't ready to hear this but as a trans person (especifically non binary androgynous - wanting to achieve plenty of unachievables regarding my body) this would be Golden to explore.

and while they make it a point in the show, claudia has clearly went through much of puberty already. her biggest problems concerning it in a practical sense are her small boobs & stature and that she can't grow a bush lmao as if there aren't millions of women in their 20s who look incredibly young and have to be carded at bars. (case in point isn't the actress herself like 20?)

it's completely understandable that it would be hard to cast someone who looks borderline prepubescent (or maybe even cast an actual kid and have them play out very challenging and mature scenes), but it was a disappointment all the same. in fact i think - even disregarding all that, her character was still definitely not as strong as it should have been.

the fact that they had her acting like a young child when she came into their lives when she was a teenager with a pretty significant chunk of life already lived bothered me. her character already felt hollow. and the inconsistencies regarding her troublemaking ways and its consequences (including personal ones) depending if they wanted her more on louis' side or not. the journey her character takes, her decisions, NONE of them could be felt as strongly as any of the ones from louis' character.

and btw? kind of annoying how plenty of the scenes between the trio were Amazing by themselves (and with amazing performances), but the emotional configuration to fall back was not really there. why does louis love claudia so much as a PERSON?? we know why he decided to save her. but why did he continue to be as taken?? and more and more each year? i don't want to have to read some meta about claudia representing a liberation he can only hope to ever achieve etc etc. that's just playing with known themes. i want to actually SEE that on the screen. the personal moments that draw them to one another.

and sorry, like. not to be disgusting. but everyone knows that the thing between louis and claudia and lestat on all ends is not exactly strictly platonic. you've already aged her up so people can stomach claudia's whole... thing. now you're not even gonna do the weird gothic incest thing?? instead of just giving a couple wink wink nudge nudge-ing how much more fucked up this could be? (but actually not. we won't go there for real guyssss). this is a maximalist melodramatic gothic show!! why would you choose to be cagey about stuff that would make it more interesting??

claudia and lestat on the other end could have bordered on actually fascinating and being legitimately catnip to me. if they stopped being kind of one note about all the same-y configurations of "it's the two of us now (either louis and claudia or louis and lestat) and this one on the corner". i don't want to say there were NO moments of interesting dynamic (potential) shifts because they tried A Bit but like. maybe a couple times?? hunting together and the underlying jealousy of claudia loving louis more than her own maker (who is also narcissistic) does not Make It for me.

i want to see both why they love and why they hate her. louis should have good reason to see her through such rose colored glasses even when she's much more of a killer than lestat and clearly grew up just as screwed up. i understand he is an unreliable narrator and is putting her on a pedestal out of guilt, but both his true adoration (which should be there by itself with plenty of evidence of Why it's there, and only made more strong with the guilt) and those sparks of actual dissent between them should be more present. ditto for claudialestat. we don't have only louis' pov, we have claudia's too. we should be able to see both his love and his hatred for her in equal measure instead of this constant underlying feel that he is just enduring her in his life for louis' sake while having some fun once in a while. i love the fact that she is a formidable opponent to him, but i want her to be more than an opponent. i wish the trio was as entangled and fucked as it should be, but i found myself liking the dubai trio MORE... the one that has considerable less screentime and in which one party was constantly in the background. but the new orleans trio is like. lestat obsessed with louis. louis obsessed with claudia. and claudia a big question mark as to her actual character drive & nuances.

that also brings me to how disappointing it is for me that lestat is so LouisPilled all the time. he meets him once and becomes obsessed with him. i already knew there was a big chance i wasn't going to care about louis/lestat since i knew the gist of it, and unfortunately i was right lmao. i LOVE them both as characters. which makes it even more sad that i can't love them as a couple. i like toxic dynamics as much as the next person, but they're only as fun as the actual pull between the two characters. they are attracted to each other, sure. and for louis there is much reason for him not being able to leave lestat. but in a romance-sense? especially from lestat's end... well, i don't see it. it makes sense that louis himself wouldn't narrate all the little things that keep lestat with him, but this is still a Romance. and two people simply attracted to each other doesn't make it a very compelling one to me.

well to end this on a good note, the other thing that i said at the start that annoyed me (aging daniel molloy) was ONLY because i thought a byproduct of that would be to remove the tension (as in, sexual, romantic) i already liked between louis the vampire and daniel the interviewer. but knowing not only how they met, but plenty about s2 already i'm happy to say how wrong i was about that :D

[randomcanbian]