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matrixwhore · 15 days ago

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IWTV S2 Watch Thoughts EP 1

This is technically a rewatch, but I literally just finished watching this for the first time like yesterday and i'm watching it again 🤭

It's been a while...that is one part intentional and was always going to be the way I approached S2. It was also one part very necessary that I took time away from online and just focus on my life, and one part so much anticipation of the show that I couldn't watch it until I was absolutely ready. This show means a lot to me for a lot of reason beyond just watching it. So yeah I'm gonna just stick with the point of this post. I am watching IWTV from a disability lense. Among the other themes and different angles to look at what's happening on the show I often consider how disability/ableism interacts with blackness, how it interacts with ageism, how it interacts with mental instability, how it interacts with gender, religion, class etc. etc. etc. etc. I'm mostly doing this for me to get my thoughts out, but I love to talk about this show, so I just want people to keep in mind the angle I come to this w if for whatever reason there's something to say about what I got to say (not that, that really matters in the grand scheme). It seems obvious to me why this lens is necessary, but I'll note here that the show literally opens in S1 with an aged disabled man staring down the finality of his life and deciding to chase after the fountain of youth/the fountain of forever that never flows with water (I'll never stop thinking about that conversation on here!) that refreshes no one even as they are imbued with power (supernatural ability).

Season one was structured like a hunt being played out like games. Poker, then chess and then at the end the play (as in the staged play but also as in the hand in the game!) was revealed. In S2 there's a clear interaction with being in a staged play and being on trial and that matters to me because how often trials are like plays especially when you are being judged as a person with intersecting marginalized identities. I think about who is a witness, and who gets to testimony with their voice, and when and why someone is judged as guilty and who is directing the play (and trial), and who gets a speaking role, and what do they get to say when they are allowed to speak. Lynchings for black people were trials fast tracked to executions, they didn't have a say about the supposed "crime" they committed, about their death as as result of their supposed guilt and about the fact that their death existed as entertainment much like these plays, for the white people who attended with their children even. (This too is a conversation about disability. this is a conversation about ableism as the mechanism that keeps every marginalization/"ism" functioning as we know them, but lemme slow down) so...yeah, much to think about.

please this is about s1 but it shows up in the previously ons....the opening of the story Louis is telling that takes place in NOLA "the year was 1910" and we see the Fairplay in lights! AINT NOTHING FAIR ABOUT THIS PLAY! my chest is in knots

also Claudia as a poison, a venom. forbidden both as the forbidden fruit and the snake in the garden... I'll have to come back to this train of thought...maybe, maybe not idk. have we said this already? the thinking pieces are many on here.

anyways!

(9 minutes into the show this is already so long I'm putting this under a read more)

What Can the Damned Really Say to the Damned?

In the title the war is on top (somewhere Beyonce's love on top is playing...I know it is...) bombs being dropped on what would be heaven if not for the fact that they are already in hell. It is not just the vampires with hungry mouths for death, it is also the cities themselves (oh I did say this somewhere already I'm sure)

thinking about their escape from what they perceived as hell equating/being: existing under Lestat and his domination over them, is revealed as just one facet of the hell that has always already existed around them. I wonder sometimes if they had managed to find somewhere that wasn't even more war torn than the life they left behind (leave the battle to join the war. win the battle to lose the war foreshadow foreshadow) what that could have been for their relationship because my heart weeps okay?! But Claudia knows she has to find other vampires. she isn't enough for him no matter what Louis tells himself to dream at night.

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Claudia doesn't dream, she goes after the life she believes she deserves and that's what I think she wants Louis to know when she insists she doesn't dream. That is what she finds he fails in relating to her on i think. it's one of the things anyway. Maybe she's also saying all she has is nightmares. There are no dreams. not in her waking, not in her sleep. Idk im getting ahead of it.

Louis: "She might have said that to shut me up, but yet, she writes it here. So, let's believe it"

Daniel: "Let's."

keeping in mind everything is part of the play/trial. also that the trial that takes her life itself is a spector over their lives. that the journals were and still are Claudia's only voice (the only space she had the ability to express honestly and the only space where they "listen" to her) and how they are used out of context to legitimize or delegitimize her in their (Louis, the court, lestat, Daniel, Armand and on and on.) own experience even with her. ugh so much so much I'll get to it.

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please delainey is already so cute climbing out the ground 🤭 murdering dying soldiers. das my baby fr! nobody touch me! i wanna raise her. i too would have begged to keep her! 😭 (don't remind me of this when I'm on Louis about this....I get to keep truths in the shadow too! I'm ahead of myself!)

thinking about the fact that they dig their own graves for the days, bury themselves to sleep and then every night they crawl out of their graves to keep on enduring hell (foreshadow foreshadow). the imagery of the birth of a vampire in many other vampire lores being crawling out of their own graves comes to mind. and this is kind of their birth seeing as how this is them as vampires officially out on their own for the first time really.

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Armand continually cutting in is taking if FOR ME personally. He is so funny like you're 500 year old parent trying to make jokes pleaseee. 🤭 this is followed closely by Claudia throwing Louis the ripped out heart of a dying soldier.

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let us take a moment with Louis to ponder Claudia's inability to dream as a deficit. meanwhile he is tormented by his dreams even in his waking. his dreams being made up of dreamlestat makes me think his pondering of her lack of dreaming here is related to his inner belief about whether or not she is capable of love. his nightmares are linked to his love for lestat and the torment it causes him to have been involved in his "demise". so I wonder if he has this view of her lack of dreaming because she was able to kill lestat and would have had he not intervened. and because he doesn't feel she loves him--Louis. and because he doesn't see her anger towards him as rooted in love loss because of the betrayal she feels. love loss would indicate she can and did love him and he lost that love. she is seen as someone who can't love. just like she can't dream. because it's easier to ponder these things as a deficit in Claudia for him. (for now)

Armand likens it to the sleep of an infant while she out there providing for Louis and herself. I have to laugh. Such is her existence. she got the papers, she facilitates the meals, she makes the plans, she learning all the languages, she still the baby! even though she's not. because she is. even when she's not.

(off topic, kind of, but I saw a gif set of Assad saying Armand would love Buffy and it made me so happy. I agree and his favorite episode is Buffy S6 I can't remember the episode number..maybe 5 or 6, but it's the tabula rasa episode! He was on his tablet writing a think piece about why Willow is misunderstood in that episode when he was playing Rashid. He might be writing it right now at the table 😂. I like to think his username was TheRealRashid, because it makes me laugh even more every time Daniel calls the real real Rashid "Real Rashid").

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The switch from the very controlled way Armand appeared in S1 as Rashid to the very relaxed way he appears now. Is this the first we see him in white? He wants to be seen as an angel so badly. one thing about Armand he gonna let that chest peak! I like this white button down!

He's not part of the interview but he's at the table, he's not eating bc he is no longer an actor he's directing, the table is part of his home, but his home is the stage, this is all part of the play/trial. viewers included, we are all part of it (the writers did allude to that before the season started, but it's exciting to experience it) the play and are all on trial. the Théâtre des Vampires is also a haunting over their lives.

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Claudia calling Louis dumb, Louis playing dumb ,made me laugh a little bit. it made me laugh! I'm sorry. but it fascinates me because she cannot get around without an adult, but here she passes him off as an invalid because she is leading this expedition and he is barely useful in this journey. I think it's interesting that Louis doesn't consider she might be too tired to dream when he is under the framework of believing she doesn't dream.

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She also doesn't talk to him but she writes everything. I have so much to say on Claudia and her journals, but I really want to get into it more when we get to the trials. She can't talk to him and have her full experience considered. Also he literally choked her. He always talks about it like she's angry because he wouldn't let her burn lestat, but he doesn't reflect much on how he stopped her from doing that. he knows it's fucked up enough when lestat did it to her. he doesn't consider that he choked the trust out of their relationship.

ALSO

Louis never drank from black people in NOLA so this, I guess, this is his first time of being confronted with drinking blood as drinking life meaning whatever life the person lived being consumed can be miserable. he is confronted with this now because the inescapable misery of this war. (inescapable misery......) this makes me think about who lestat chooses to kill and how Louis viewed him for who he chose. it makes me think of when they drank from the tenor who mostly led a good life. it makes me think about how lestat is ruled by hedonism in many ways. it also makes me think about this as his abuse and monstrosity doubling as sheltering them from the dreadful scope vampirism. I imagine lestat figured this out on his own and that is something he considered when choosing his victims. he learned to read their minds as part of his hunt and that's what he passed on to Louis. he learned to consider their inner world before drinking from them. they, Louis and Claudia, don't have the luxury of doing that where they are right now. There is no escape from the misery. there is no life untouched by the chill of death in this all consuming war. there's no dreaming. no hope. only surviving. tho I do think the only hope he has is dreamlestat and that is also torment. I think about how Louis' vampirism is an all consuming war. and I do want to jump just a little. just a little!

Claudia staring at that fire like oh we really speaking French now talking about "we're taking it all in." and "we can't get warm." even tho Claudia has only known a life on fire she has never been able to stay warm, but okay Louis.

I really like this scene. Louis talking to himself is a running theme that I'm kind of obsessed with.

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Louis knocking off that jaw and it turning to dust means something! It means something!!!! Claudia's hope for a future with vampires better than lestat being a long dead thing. a dead on arrival thing. what he did to them being turned to dust at Louis' touch. I think about that in terms of how the hard truth that they where better off with out him being as good as dust to Louis at this point anyway. even if he can't say it out loud.

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I know that dead weight hit, but at least she put it in a journal Louis! he would have never known had he not read it. but you 🫵🏾 Louis! you like to say that quiet part out loud! I can only do so much understanding!

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"Unworthy in San Francisco, unworthy in Dubai. Disregard!" I'm sure there's something to say here but I cannot stop laughing. He really went from dad jokes to scorned mother talking shit.

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Claudia still taking souvenirs. I was gonna ask what does she even need the gun for. I can think of how it can be used even by vampires. but I doubt it's being used.

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I know why the caged bird crawls out of lestat's neck and flies away!

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bloodletting anyone always used to feel like murder until he murdered lestat (the only one who isn't actually fully dead). do we call this growth? im joking

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in romania is really the upfront conversation of what do people believe about what they witness. what do they cast doubt over in order to shield themselves with. and off the strength of even possibility what precautions do they take? I like that this happens before we get to the theater in Paris that makes a show out of this very thin line.

anyways the excitement of possible vampires that aren't lestat (and Louis) break Claudia's silent treatment.

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Emilia said "you will make the friends" because vodka surely that is a unifying vice. but they black Emilia. they aren't just American. they are black. I have to laugh.

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I just know Claudia is tried of seeing Louis' walls come down, quiver, at the sight of any half decent looking white man with an accent. because what is there to trust about him enough to break character right now??n(that he ends up as the someone untrustworthy by this very same man later on like...)

I need time to think irt to memory and Louis. I'll circle back.

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Daniel hanging on to the legitimacy of this interview like a life line. his power lies in the investigation he's more than capable of.

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something something about kids turning darkness into song, and Claudia being an eternal morbid child likened to a caged bird singing with clipped wings imprisoned in an eternal night and still not fitting in with these morbid singing children who's wings have been clipped by war and occupation something something and the looming threat of the vampire on them all.

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the cover being searching for his wife with a picture of his sister, while he looks for vampires with his daughter/sister now provider. this is so normal. all of this is so so normal.

"up your bum" I am laughing. I am laughing. this is all so normal. Morgan said "I know what you are"

what I have to say about memory and Louis is tied in with something I have to say about Louis being regarded always as exceptionally untrustworthy in comparison to those around him (who also lie). I need to chew on it a bit.

even when he wants to be genuine (giving his real name) he is lying (just looking for his wife). are his intentions nefarious in this lie. not exactly, but by the very nature of being a vampire yes, but not in the way this man is thinking of it, except to this man exactly in the way he is thinking of it. because oh! he is black and it does matter. This white man feels it his duty to keep this black man in line with the rules and the laws (themes motifs we'll see this again, we see this often). never mind what it would mean for him to turn back and take his punishment for his black daughter who this white man has seen and knows would be left alone should this Louis turn back and take his punishment. because they do see her as a child. so does she also go back to take her punishment as well? and what is her crime? and if no crime. isn't it still a punishment she would suffer regardless? isn't her fate always intwined with the ways in which Louis doesn't adhere to laws and rules expected of the black man. expected of the fledgling vampire. I see this in so many ways as Louis still fatally underestimating how his vampirism (and his blackness) separates him from others existing in time and space in a way that he does not.

(preemptive anxieties: anyone with the urge to tell me it's not about Louis being black should remind themselves that they flat out have Louis calling himself the magical vodka negro and keep it.)

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delainey is so infectious the way she plays Claudia's excitement. 🥺

Louis said baboons. please this why she told that man you dumb Louis.

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something something lestat left in a dump yard to feed on rats. something something them sleeping in where the rats lived, something something the rats at the theater to come and Claudias fate (more later), something something Louis to share a rat meal with lestat. something somethings.

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"why you laughing with them giving out your real name?"

like I said, Claudia perceived in her coldness, but her coldness is her awareness of their vampirism and how it separates them and their blackness and how it separates them and her black girlhood/womanhood and how it separates her from Louis.

thinking about the difference between the old vampires with powerful blood running through their veins and options of blood to feed on and the old vampires that are seemingly weak by comparison being sick. sick by the the age maybe? the misery? and maybe the blood they have to survive on...

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oh yeah Louis is also choking the life out of their "freedom" by carrying lestat with them. there's also that.

I wanna cry that the one vampire that she "finds" that isn't a bastard is one she has to have made and that's so very short lived.....

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so this thing with Louis actively working through his memory right. the reveals come in his being able to testimony. Dubai also serves as a trial and here Louis gets to speak. and here Claudia only gets to say what's written in her journal and what we know of her experience is still perceived by the men who pick apart her experience by way of her journals. it's important that Claudia writes down that she doesn't dream. tells Louis that she doesn't dream. but is seen by Louis most likely dreaming. so does she not remember her dreams? does she lie to Louis and her self about those dreams? Does she not qualify them as dreams because they are nightmares? We will never know. We will never know because she does not get to testimony. She does not matter as a witness. Louis as a witness and his testimony is held under the same ableist scrutiny that victims of abuse, survivors of assault, black people, and mentally ill people critically face when it comes to the law. Do they speak of what they remember perfectly? Do they get to speak at all? and when they don't remember perfectely they are liars even if it's just that they are remembering incorrectly. Even if they believe what they remember and tell it that way because they believe it. I know that he does lie, but THEY ALL LIE. everyone. he is seen as exceptional in this often by the viewers included because we are also part of the play and the trial and like the audience at the theater (I do recall the great "Louis is a liar" wave of s1) and by everyone around him even tho he suffers from what is only natural about memory and age as well and memory irt to trauma and mental illness as well as memory irt to the difference of perspectives. This is why it is very important that Daniel is the other side of this memory coin. he is also the other witness that corroborates a truth about San Francisco that is missing for both of them, but we will get to that. Mental illness and blackness (and for Claudia girlhood/womanhood intersecting with blackness) disable credibility. disable worthiness. disable fair play! I want to get into Claudia more, but I will later.

and I think this moment with Louis crying because he is able to uncover a truth beyond his Claudia's diaries and what she says to him, hidden within his own memories is really one of the first times Daniel is forced to confront the full scope of Louis humanity. his experience. he is uncomfortable with the rawness of authenticity not because he hasn't seen Louis cry. I think because he also carried an inner belief that Louis is a liar. that his is not a credible source rather than that his is a traumatized vampire that is reaching back through time to make the monster that is memory reveal what is real and true about what happened all those years ago. I consider his sarcasm when Louis stressed how important it was that they got every detail right. that they got them accurately. this eats at him. and this is the first time Daniel has to sit with viewing Louis as a meal as well.

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anyways there's a trial in romania as well. on whether Emilia is a monster for having possibly been bit by one. the very possibility of truth in superstition means her head rolls. the occupying soldiers are the judge, jury, and executioner. and even though this situation does involve a vampire, the fallout and impact of what vampires do to humanity are viewed, by Louis and Claudia, as a separate human issue that they will not involve themselves in. because their aim here to join that issue and make friends with it. in a way they cannot with non-vampire humans.

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the caged bird sings to scare the locals! (well in this case not the locals but you get my point)

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Forgive me, I keep hearing They Not Like Us every time I see this vampire omg!

he's no good as a vampire anymore because Claudia disabled him by taking his eyes, so he dies. and the vampire who kills him prophesies Claudia's demise it seems, dreams only for a moment a life with them off of Claudia's sweet blood (with the power of lestat coursing through it) and she then jumps in the fire. for the hopelessness and the endless loss, and probably for having been the one to have to kill her own son and also for not being able to make anyone new vampires.

the blood is no good for turning vampires. Louis says "maybe you need better blood" where she gonna get it Louis? where can she get this elusive better blood?

"all those that in darkness go into the darkness" she says this to Claudia specifically. then she jumps into the fire and burns! that means something I know it does. as well as the rest of what she says that feel very much like a warning. dreams give you their names and die right before your very eyes.

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I was getting side-eyed for noting that it's (seemingly) been many nights since the warmth of infatuation and the heat of needy fucking transpired in this home of theirs. but there that groan is. in between them. like I am truly a loumand fuck crazy and nasty truther, it's just the chill is right here before my very eyes in the text. that freaky feeding at the dinner table in front of Daniel was a reawakening that's all I was saying. that's all I was saying! 🤭

I wanna believe someone figured out what book that was on Armand's iPad...if someone did. I wanna know.

Armand goes from notes in the margin participation to directing the course of this thing.

He is on the record and now Louis is leading the expedition in the past! I love that their intimacy is always played up when they really get into the act! and we are certainly on a different act.

and now Armand is dressed in grey. just little observations. it means something im sure.

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the hard words and soft words from Louis! He really does weave through being brother and father and mother. their relationship is so normal. He wanna believe he's being real with her even with dreamlestat sitting right there. He's choosing and she's choosing to believe him. they both need it.

#iwtv #iwtv s2 #rewatch #louis de pointe du lac #the vampire armand #the vampire claudia #lestat de lioncourt #daniel molloy

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