Anti-Blackness in aspec spaces is the fact that I have found so little articles or anything related to this topic, it's either aspec exclusion from queer spaces or Black exclusion from queer spaces. I need them together. The latter is better but I need them together and no one is talking about it.
I saw some posts about “depiction is not endorsement” and it is a valid argument in media discourse, but I don't think that's what's actually happening with tvl though. I agree that some scenes are being read with the worst intention possible, but I don't believe the criticisms regarding anti-Blackness and Orientalism are baseless. Depicting murder doesn't mean supporting murder, depicting racism doesn't mean supporting racism and all that, especially in the gothic horror genre where taboos are meant to be explored.
But the problem lies in how the show actually handles these themes. I'm gonna assume that most people watching tvl have already watched iwtv and already know about its dark themes. Iwtv was far from perfect and certainly had its own racial missteps, yet the racial criticisms surrounding it were significantly quieter than those directed at tvl. Thats because tvl’s writing is doing something worse. When look at its three main characters of color, it stops feeling like a portrayal of racism and starts feeling like the show is agreeing with it.
The issue with Claudia's séance scene is that while it claims to adapt a moment from Merrick, it completely ignores the show’s established context while failing to faithfully translate the source material as well.
In Merrick, Claudia's intent toward Louis stems from a fundamentally different dynamic, trapped in the physical body of a 5-year-old child, book Claudia inherently requires a caretaker to survive, which is why she desires to make one of her creators her "slave" and that they become entirely dependent on her.
Show Claudia, however, is introduced as a 14-year-old who learns to navigate the world independently, making this entire “slave” dynamic logically non-applicable to her characterization. Also in ss1, when Claudia calls Lestat "master" it is an intentional critique of the race dynamics in how Jim Crow era present in their house, she wants Louis to recognize their shared oppression, even if he refuses to acknowledge it.
Yet, the show abandons this nuanced racial framing and instead has her hurl racial insults at Louis such as "nappy little head". What is the narrative purpose of this hostility? If the goal was to show that her toxicity toward Louis stems from caring about him more, why not actually anchor it in their canonical dynamic?
So the show adapts the hate but not the love, was it really that difficult to adapt just one more line from the text to reflect her true feelings? She has legitimate grievances against both Louis and Lestat, but they cut that nuanced emotional tragedy between Louis and Claudia. If the show set out to adapt séance scene, why also erase the part where she repeatedly calls Louis "Father" throughout the passage, only to replace that complex, lingering bond with a line declaring that at least Lestat is her blood?
This rewrite subtly paints Lestat as the better parent while framing Louis as the sole origin of her misery. But let’s be real, Louis is far from perfect, but who was the one physically and mentally abusing her to the point where she decided to kill him? Who dragged her off the train when she tried to leave? And who crossed the ocean to actively participate in her lynching? Who is the one that got dragged away and still tried to hold on to her and who is the one who chose not to save her? By erasing her love for Louis and substituting it with a racialized insult and a defense of Lestat's bloodline, the show flattens a complex tragedy into a narrative that whitewashes abusive dynamics at Louis and Claudia's expense.
The narrative repeatedly emphasizes Louis's history as a pimp to an exhausting degree, as if pimping were his sole defining personality trait. In iwtv, Louis's struggles with race, exploitation, and morality were treated with gravitas, we understood the oppressive systemic realities he was forced to navigate. In tvl, however, reducing his entire identity to this specific trope without adequate nuance risks reinforcing racialized stereotypes rather than critiquing them. Why is Louis's past as a pimp continuously dragged out and weaponized against him at every turn, yet we never see characters reflexively branding Lestat as a "domestic abuser" or a "lyncher" every time he enters a room? Unless I severely misunderstand gothic conventions, are we supposed to believe that being a pimp is the ultimate, unforgivable crime in this universe, while domestic abuse and participating in a lynching are just harmless gothic fun? Hyper-focusing on Louis's mortal failings while glossing over Lestat's actions, then we have a double standard in how it assigns moral guilt to its black protagonist.
Insults targeting Armand’s sexuality, appearance have persisted from season 1 to season 3 without a single moment of meaningful narrative pushback. There is something really careless about how the show crafts Armand, giving him a Bengali heritage simply because Assad is of Bengali descent (as Assad himself confirmed in interview), devaluing his appearance, diminishing his charisma, and stripping away the intense attraction other characters canonically have toward him.
Even if we charitably assume the show intended to highlight the implicit anti-Asian and desexualization of South Asian men by showing how the characters around Armand deny their attraction to him, this is still terrible execution. Rather than challenging these microaggressions, the narrative actively feeds into the worst kinds of stereotypes. Instead of framing Armand as a nuanced victim navigating systemic racism, the show paints him as purely scheming, venomous, cowardly, undesirable, and pathetic.
When Louis faced racism in season 1, it was treated with narrative weight and systemic critique. In contrast, the Orientalism directed at Armand is consistently framed as a punchline, something for the audience to laugh at rather than interrogate. Worse still, if Armand ever seeks genuine sympathy for his traumatic past, he is either openly mocked or forced to coercively extract that empathy from someone else. I dont know why they have to do this in tvl either when the book already establishes quite well Armand’s trauma, but I suppose turning racial microaggressions into comedy and reducing a South Asian character's trauma to pathetic desperation evil for 3 seasons straight make the show more compelling in their mind. I don't need the other characters to forgive Armand's actions because of his past or anything like that, I just need the story to genuinely handle the trauma of his past well ONCE and not some okay fleeting moments between horrible writing like this.
Art should make us uncomfortable but there is a difference between confronting audiences with uncomfortable truths and hiding behind genre conventions to bypass accountability for careless framing. And when racialized tropes are used repeatedly without critical counterweight, it stops feeling like a commentary on gothic dark themes and starts feeling like narrative endorsement.
but if I were to say that I don’t think vampires inherently and universally represent queerness and that if that’s the only way you engage with any story containing a vampire then a lot of very important messages are going to go straight over your head? i would be killed to death.
ESPECIALLY an issue when vampires very explicitly represent fear of outsider immigrant non-white invaders! Dracula can absolutely be read with a queer lens but we cannot let our desire for ~spooky gay stuff~ blind us to the very real xenophobia, antisemitism, and orientalism present in a LOT of the foundational media in vampire history! nor the racism present in modern vampire stories!!!
🌕🩸REVENANT - TRANSFROM 🩸🌕
Bison Wares is a trans🏳️⚧️ owned small business run by two artists, Mark and Smi.
Everything we create is hand drawn by us with the company of our two cats Ame and Flea
We are very excited to present our newest project, vampire and werewolf themed jean Sherpa jackets.
Included in this Kickstarter are other items such as patches, blankets, enamel pins, tapestries and more!
Above you can see several of our concept pieces to be added soon! 🌕🐺🦇🩸
was doing a first aid course and it kept talking about how when applying first aid to a child you have to ask the PARENT for consent and how the child's consent is not enough unless you cannot reach the parent. and then immediately after there was a unit on shaken baby syndrome, and then mentioned abuse as a common source of children getting injured. and they didn't see the irony there. i later asked the instructor what to do about parental consent if the medical emergency was from the parent abusing the child and she was like "you still need to obtain parental consent. you can report the abuse though" not even acknowledging how fucked the whole system is. i hate it here. youth rights now
complaints about the pacing of tvl as if it’s poor writing confuse me because this is a completely different narrative from louis’ right? louis had decades to think about how he was going to tell his story, he had armand to plan with, it was calculated and designed to be seductive and tidy. he needs the audience to come away from the story understanding him. and then it was organized and written by a professional journalist. the pacing is going to be even and smooth.
lestat is not methodical. he is impulsive and only barely grasping onto reality. his emotions drive him in the most chaotic ways. the way he’s going to tell his story is going to be much more akin to how regular people tell stories where you bounce around. you get too deep into the present story before realizing you need to back up and explain some things for it all to make sense. you leave some things out because you forget you’re the only person who knows that context. you justify things you’re not ready to admit are awful yet. he did not have decades to plan out his narrative. he woke the queen, the world is ending, he figures people should know how this even happened and on a whim he sits down to record his experience of the events sitting alone in his home. he’s recalling losing his fucking shit, and maybe his brain wasn’t entirely focused on storing those memories very well. and maybe he wants to embellish because he’s lestat. he loves the drama. and he doesn’t have anyone there to guide him through it and ask questions so it makes more sense.
yeah, the pacing is going to be different and off intentionally. it’s meant to reflect the change in narrative.
i do understand just not liking it, it’s not the kind of thing you enjoy, etc. but it IS purposeful.
Despite the fact that I am not deaf, mute, or blind myself, one of the most common questions I receive is how to portray characters with these disabilities in fiction.
As such, I’ve compiled the resources I’ve accumulated (from real life deaf, mute, or blind people) into a handy masterlist.
Deaf Characters:
Dialogue with signing characters (also applies to mute characters.)
Mute Characters
Blind Characters:
Characters Who Are Blind in One Eye
Deaf-Blind Characters
If you have any more resources to add, let me know! I’ll be adding to this post as I find more resources.
I hope this helps, and happy writing! <3
Updated with more resources, specifically for characters who are blind in one eye.
compiling a list of books to fill the hiatus! asterisks are for books i have not yet read, so cannot personally vouch for but seem like a good fit/have been recommended by others. i’d love for this to be an evolving list so let me know if there is anything you think should be included. :)
some themes/concepts i looked for: vampires, gothic horror (particularly southern gothic), generational trauma, queer identity, unreliable narrators, theater/performance, complicated family dynamics, grief, historical setting/flashbacks, new orleans/paris/cross country travel as a setting, epistolary/interview format.
shoutout to my lovely friend, @shamixlour for the suggestions and letting me ramble <3
i really thought the point of "being lgbt+ doesn't absolve you of racism as a white person" was that white people arent absolved of racism by being marginalized but it really seems like people think other marginalizations make it okay. no being disabled doesn't do it. no being poor doesnt do it. we need to fight against racism actively no matter what.
it’s not weird to find fanfiction from 2021, or 2017, or 2014 that you’ve never read and actually taking your time to read it.
it’s not weird to love it and comment and leave kudos because the author will probably still see it someday and it will make them happy.
it’s not weird to like said author’s work so much that you want to go look for other fics from them.
it’s not weird to go through the authors profile and look for other fics from the ships you like (or maybe some that you’ll give a chance because you liked the author) and maybe bookmark them for later.
it’s not weird to read these other fics and like them too and comment on them because you actually like them and you want to let the author know.
it’s not weird to read fanfiction from 5, or 8, or 10 years ago and actually enjoy and engage with it because it’s perfectly normal to relate to something that’s less than a decade old!
let’s stop treating fanfiction like they’re instagram posts that stop being interesting in 24 hours! fanfiction is NOT social media, fanfiction is art!!! and art doesn’t get old in one day, one year, or even a decade!
read fanfiction! write fanfiction! comment on fanfiction! let’s not let fanculture die people!!!!!
Not only is it not weird, it is ACTIVELY ENCOURAGED. Authors LOVE IT when people do this!!! Its not "weird" and its not "neutral" -- its a fucking DELIGHT. Feel very absolutely free to read though an author's entire back catalogue, leaving kudos and/or comments along the way; we absolutely freaking love when someone does this. There is nothing more joyful than getting a comment notification for an old fic. It will make our day, I promise.
personally I'm a big fan of the moment a vampire gets Embraced being a metaphor for a sudden, irreversible trauma. maybe you thought you knew what it would be like but you couldn't have understood the actual enormity; maybe it was an accident or something completely out of your control. either way this event happens to you and you are changed forever
now your emotions are unstable. your anger is all-consuming, your fear takes your body away from you, and always always always you are a danger to others if you can't control yourself from what you want and need. you can no longer be in the daylight living a typical life, so your social world completely changes and so does the environment. you might be stuck now with cold empty streets and buildings. you might cling to clubs and bars are the only places where you get to be around people living their lives. in some severe cases, you can't even look at yourself anymore, or perhaps the figure in the mirror is someone you don't recognize. your past identity and way of being has been taken away, permanently
you do what you have to in order to survive. and your new way of surviving, the only way you can exist, is something society finds disgusting or fetishizes. it doesn't matter what other people think because it's all you can do anyway. your new "community", those who most understand what you're going through, are themselves traumatized and suffering, in a constant state of victim and perpetrator. maybe they want to help you but maybe they want to use you. maybe you want to be kind but now your very nature makes real consent and honesty difficult, so in some ways you are a user and abuser too
do young vampires think about their last "normal" day? was it perfectly mundane, with no warning that it would be the last one? if they could have that day again, would they try appreciate all the little details like the warmth of the sun and the taste of lunch better this time? or would they try desperately to change their fate and avoid what's coming for them? well. you can't change the past. you can only do what you can with what you have now
pure love
Hello white tumblr user. In front of you is a post made by a Black person about their experiences with racism in a fandom you are a part of. Your challenge is to read the entire post without telling them they're making things up or making a big deal out of nothing. You also may not tell them they're wrong to tell people how to enjoy media or that they should focus on real world issues instead. If you fail this challenge the case of live hornets I have implanted in your sternum will unlock, allowing the hornets to sting your insides until you succumb to the venom. You have 60 seconds. Good luck.
on the topic of disabled characters, though, i think a LOT of artists give characters mobility aids that their character wouldn't actually benefit from using.
i'm sort of having a mild brain fog moment rn so i can't fully articulate what i'm on about, but i think a lot of able-bodied artists view things like canes and crutches as interchangeable. and they often don't know enough about the wide range of mobility aids to make an informed decision about what their character might actually use based on their disability
i also think that aids like walkers and rollators are sort of viewed as "cringe" on some level, and many people view them to be "just for old people," so many artists will opt for giving a character who has full-body pain and fatigue a cane (which, in many cases, can potentially WORSEN full-body pain) instead. and a lot of people don't realize that most wheelchair users are able to walk, so they don't consider it an option for characters with chronic pain
idk it's kind of frustrating. i've genuinely never, ever seen a character that uses a rollator before. not once. i cannot name a single one. i know of multiple ocs who are described to have full-body pain, dizziness, and fatigue that are drawn as cane users and are never shown with wheelchairs or walkers, though
it's also sort of sad? i've been diagnosed since i was twelve years old, and i only heard of rollators LAST YEAR. and that was only because i saw one irl and immediately asked what it was. i wonder how many disabled people out there don't even know it's an option solely because they're completely underrepresented online and in media
if you're a creative with a disabled oc, PLEASEEE check out this link. it's a very nice and detailed guide for telling which mobility aids suit someone's needs best. it's incredibly important to make the right choice for your character! mobility aids tell you a LOT about someone's lived experience. picking the right one will communicate to your audience #1 what your character goes through #2 that you UNDERSTAND what your character goes through!
In case you’re uninitiated:
These are the current female volleyball uniforms
The Norwegian team on the left got fined a ridiculous amount of money for wearing shorts to the games
When you compare the men and women, it becomes very clear how sexist the uniforms are.
“Sexism is dead women are so annoying to keep talking about it”
*professional athletes get fined for wearing shorts*
