#they're all toxic but maybe loustat can be better together now

[hellameyers]

It's funny looking back and listening to podcasts from Season 1 of IWTV, and hearing people say Louis's relationship with Armand was healthier than Lestat. Hilarious!

At least with Lestat, you knew up front what you were getting. Armand was just more clever with his control and machinations.

[ca-suffit]

i'm also worried that they will have nikki be just awful (i haven't read the books), there was that glimpse of racism with armand, maybe they make him abusive and cruel as hell while continuing to have lestat be "good" like we saw with the finale, no matter what lestat has done (or will do) the writers will never treat him the way they treat other characters who do evil shit, he is their main white guy, he simply must be, overall, "good" or at least everything bad gets ignored, because they need their white saviout and for loustat to be "good" (ie not toxic). with the loustat reunion in the finale, the whole thank you/i forgive you shit, it feels like the show wants loustat to be as wholesome as can be and what better way to show nikki as pure evil, so fans can go "see!! lestat is and always has been the innocent victim"

I don't think they're going to make Nicki an outright villain. I also don't think *the show* is gonna frame Lestat as being solely "good" but the fandom will always do it. The show has outright said that nobody is "good" or "bad" here in the first place. Just bcuz Loustat might be the relationship focus of the full story doesn't mean it's supposed to be without issue. They still have *so* many issues they haven't even touched yet.

Lestat has also canonically acknowledged that the drop was fucked. Ppl are ignoring that that's happened but it did. 2x8 did feel rushed in ways and overly trying to sell Loustat, but they're still not *together* at the end there. It's a step towards something but not a full healing. They have a long way to go still and we're about to see a lot worse from Lestat in some ways otherwise.

The books were always trying to sell this idea that didn't come across v well to me about Lestat being good or evil. She didn't give him enough consequences as the books went for any reason why he'd feel so much guilt about his "evilness." The show has done a better job of that so far and I trust they will still continue, especially given how AMC tends to tell rly good stories about complicated male characters. They p openly embrace all kinds of fucked up shit and don't try to excuse it at all.

Nickistat only works if it's a tragedy and it's only a tragedy if they're both kind of fucked. Lestat's actions directly make Nicki worse in some ways so Lestat *has* to do those things. Again, the fandom will excuse it all the way and coddle that fucker to death but I don't think the show will.

A lot of what this fandom struggles to understand is what a character's internal motivations are compared to what other characters are seeing from this person *externally.* Like, sure, Lestat can force Claudia to watch Charlie burn bcuz he knows the pain of loss, but do u think Claudia gives a shit about his trauma then? Even if she knew about it? U think she gives a shit when *she's* being the one traumatized now? But then ppl wanted to give her shit for how she presses on Nicki to Lestat during their chess game, like that was somehow *worse* than what he'd done already to her (and why she learned to act like this in the first place!). The antiblack motivations for judging that as harshly as it was too, this fandom can go fuck itself.

Also Nicki's racist comment towards Armand is just...some typical white ppl shit tbh. A lot of the fandom's issues in the first place are that white audiences aren't used to seeing white ppl like this, but this is how white ppl exist to everyone else who isn't white every day. Lestat's ignorance to racial issues is also a typical white thing. U see most of the fandom ignoring it too bcuz most ppl's understanding of what racism is comes from intentional slurs only and nothing else. A lot of racist shit isn't done intentionally or even consciously. We're all raised in a racist world, we absorb it and repeat a lot without question, across all races. Ppl have to get over seeing that as a "good" or "bad" thing itself too. It just is. A lot of things are inherently racist on purpose and we recycle those things all over bcuz that's the design. Although everything Lestat did in S1 was worse than Nicki's single slur moment, yet ppl are choosing to believe that's all a lie instead of taking time to look at it and learn from it about maybe their own racial biases.