#and making the brothel an analog for slavery was also Not Awesome

[monstersinthecosmos]

... not to mention that most beloved trope, a girl or woman having to go through SA in order to grow, mature, "toughen up", and ultimately decide home wasn't so bad after all! The only option! No other way possible!! asdlfgkh ... Daniel Bogosian x Rashid for healthiest relationship in the series so far, which is both Rude and Wonderful, lol I'm fine

Right I'm just, really. Like.

Here's what I've been trying to say, and because No Negativity Allowed on Tumblr it's been tricky to navigate because suddenly I'm a loser book purist (?) and a "BOOMER" (lmfao??) but this is the thing when you make an adaptation that you need to be ready to defend:

Does this change make the story better?

If any random person turns this show on and doesn't know any better, cool! Enjoy! But it's *worth* asking what RJ is trying to say about women, and being queer, and being Black. And if some of these decisions are shaping up to be lazy, sketchy, harmful, etc, that's *worth* talking about.

And there's a CONTEXT here when it comes to Claudia, and the changes they've made. We lost a really excellent feminist character for this. And like, I've been saying the whole time, I understand if they didn't want to cast a small child for logistic purposes, but they haven't written a new character that has nearly the same care. Claudia on the show so far is just a bunch of sexist stereotypes about teenagers in a big trenchcoat, and to have her raped on top of that, is just. Beyond the pale.

It doesn't matter if a 14 year old still a "child" and it doesn't matter if we're all supposed to suspend disbelief a little bit to pretend Bailey doesn't look like she's 19. The show has gone out of its way to let us know that she can drive and she can blend in at college. This is a completely different set of struggles than a small child would have in navigating the world and the conflict is just, not there. The conflict they gave her is that she gets raped when she leaves home, and I just can't even begin to unpack it.

But BECAUSE she isn't a convincing child, it's introducing so many bad messages about. .. petite women? You aren't a real woman if you don't have tits? Only perverts will like you? .... cool.

Don't get me started on how the idea that she'd be hormonal for eternity is so fucking disgusting and stupid like she's dead bro why is she hormonal and why do you think teenage girls are fucking werewolves or whatever this is so gross but i'm already talking too much don't let me get into it now LOL

Plus like, don't get me started on all the smug meta moments breaking the fourth wall like Daniel acknowledging the story; it was bad enough that the show burns the tapes as if to say the novel is stupid (which is what RJ is telling us) but now we're raping Anne's fucking daughter. Cool!

It truly fucking baffles me that a show in 2022 is still leaning into this trope about SA, especially when we see that it affects the OTHER MEN in the show more than it affects Claudia herself. Daniel uses it as leverage for the story he's trying to tell. Louis (someone?) tore the pages out. If Louis is the one who removed the pages, he did that for his own needs. He altered Claudia's story because it makes *him* uncomfortable. It's painful for *him*. Louis waits around in squalor on Rue Royale for Claudia to get raped and come home to save him.

And the thing that's just, so fucking gross, is that they've given us enough information to know Claudia was abused already in her life as a mortal. Her response to recognizing Lestat as an abuser and sticking up to him does not need to be at the expense of raping her.

Also like, the entire reason that writing SA and violence against women is sensitive is because it's so likely the audience has experienced it. That's the entire conversation. We've had this conversation over and over and over. I wouldn't care about the lack of a CW if the show had NONE AT ALL but the fact that they put one in Ep1 for Paul but not for this is just really telling about the lack of care and sensitivity for this topic. And especially when they KNOW a huge portion of the fanbase is women and queer people.

I've been trying not to be such a raging misandrist LMAO but so many choices on the show for the past year and the way RJ and Alan Taylor talk about it kept sounding like IT WOULD BE SO COOL IF WE MADE IWTV BUT FOR MEN BC MEN DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TV TO WATCH and this really just hammered it home for me lol

BUT ALSO IT'S JUST. THE SHOW INVENTED THIS AREA OF DRAMA. Like the show made a decision to have the vampires be literally sexual. What the fuck does Killer need to RAPE someone for, anyway?! Like why.. would a vampire.. need to do that. What. WHAT.

All the talk about aging up Claudia (or Armand) because the sexy stuff is too gross is like, they could've just as easily not made it sexy? Especially on a network show that can't show too much anyway. I understand the need for a visual in a visual medium but this also will go towards my feeling that the show is not actually showing us a lot of queer intimacy anyway. It's like they threw Sam's ass into the first episode for shock value to reel everyone in and where is the rest? Blood drinking, cuddling, kissing, casual intimacy?

It's just honestly so fucking, pathetically and stereotypically Hollywood Cishet Old Guy to view love this way. It's subtext if they don't literally fuck. It's not scary to be 14 forever if you don't get raped.

idk man it's just. Wow.