#Nickie is his metaphoric “Mother”

[deep-spacediver577]

Casual supervised visitation between Elmer and Nickie

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

i love rio's look from the 18th century, it's so much gentler, and i like the contrast between that green and the black she has now bc i expect as death she just reflects how people view her, right? and agatha's view on death is fucking furious, she hates death, so death hates her. she pursues agatha bc agatha runs. agatha does this to herself

[here-for-fanart]

I just realized something about Agatha All Along. Everyone who walked the Witches' Road got exactly what they wanted.

Jen went on the road to find her powers (both inner and outer), and that's exactly what she got. [She was really the only one who went specifically for power.]

Alice went on the road, not really for answers about her mother, but to end her curse. Her curse ended.

Sharon (Mrs. Hart) went on the road 'cause she wanted to go to a party. They went to a nice house, hung out, and drank wine.

Lilia went on the road, not to get her powers back, but so she could remember herself and realize her full potential as a witch (not relating to magical power, but to the power of identity).

Billy went on the road to find his brother. He found him and made it possible for his brother to come to the physical world.

Rio--yes, she technically walked the road--wanted Agatha's forgiveness. I believe that kiss was Agatha's way of saying she forgave her, even if she still couldn't face her (and Nicky) in death and became a ghost. Some might say she had to kiss her to syphon her power, but I think she could have done it another way. She chose the "kiss of Death" as her way to go. And there is the beautiful metaphor of Agatha "accepting" Death. She accepts that this is who Rio is and forgives her for having to hurt Agatha by doing her job.

Agatha, again while saying she wanted her powers back, actually wanted closure. Death would not stop pursuing her. Their history, and Billy's presence, meant that she was continually reminded of her grief over her son. In order to protect herself, emotionally, Agatha had put up walls and hid herself behind a thirst for power. It's why she says in the beginning, she's vulnerable "only physically". On the Road, Agatha became emotionally vulnerable to Billy, Rio, and even the others. And while the last trial was meant to be for the Green Witch, Agatha did it herself. Alone. She was forced to feel that sense of powerlessness once again. The Road taught her that her feelings of vulnerability, of powerlessness, what probably felt like the death of herself, would lead to new growth in the form of a connection with Billy, an understanding and forgiveness of Rio, a true connection to a coven (it was Agatha's encouragement that led most of them to discovering their own truths), and a true surrender to the powerlessness of an actual physical death. So, I guess you could say, she did gain power (the power of vulnerability). It just wasn't the kind she was expecting. But I choose to call it closure, because she "settled" a lot of what was causing her to seek magical power in the first place.

Everyone got what they wanted but maybe not in the way they were expecting.

[cissa-calls]

Considering how the original Ballad of the Witches Road was a silly ditty of imagination and love made up between Agatha and Nicky, it was a song attesting to a mother’s connection. Lorna Wu’s cover of it was a continuation of that legacy, she sang it for Alice, out of love and protection for her daughter. Perhaps that why it was such a strong ward against the familial curse, because it was a song that only reinforced its original intentions: proof and strength to the interconnection of a mother and child.

Considering all of this, the choice of Agatha to be the one who lead the band and sang the Ballad in the protection trial makes much more sense, and is that much more important. Originally, I wondered, why Agatha? This was Alice’s trial, her mother the original singer. But Agatha was held the deepest intimacy and connection to the song, the one who not only understood its power, but Lorna’s intentions.

Agatha and Lorna are echos of one another, same as Nicky and Alice. The former were both powerful witches who wove magic with storytelling and song. Both mothers who turned it into a living archive that testified their love for their children, to protect, to remember, to hold them close metaphorically, if physically was not possibly.

Every time a witch sang the ballad, the short life of Nicky was being celebrated and remembered, just as every reprise prolonged Alice’s life under the curse. In that way, they were both able to live. When Alice crossed to the other side, I wonder if he comforted her by saying that.

How could Nicky ever truly be gone if his words are sung aloud every day, even centuries later? He is not a physical ghost nor memory, but he a wish, an ember sparked again and again when his words are sung. Would the sparks finally catch and grow into a living flame?

In that way, how could Agatha be blamed for hoping Nicky survived and possibly be incarnated in Billy when the words of thousands of witches did really hold such power? When she witnessed the proof of how it feigned off Death from Alice? When he himself was borne of scratch, a miracle already.

[ellestra]

Even the Evil Witch loved her son

The moment I realised the song was just something Nicky made with the help of his mum (Agathe truly is the source of all Witch lore, isn't she?) it all started falling into place. I knew what was going to happen to that first witch who asked her about The Road because this is exactly what she was trying to do at the beginning. Just provoke the witches to blast her with their power so she could steal it.

The montage still helped to understand what Agatha knew and when she knew it. And since she knew The Witches Road was never real she also knew there was some very powerful magic involved when it actually appeared. Reality altering one. So of course she figured out who Billy was. It only took a while because when she last met him he wasn't real. But maybe that made him the realest to Agatha because he made himself real.

And of course that what makes Rio so aggravated. She is cycle of life and he is not part of it. Made of magic and never really born and can't truly die. And then he take William Kaplan's death away from her too. And one more kid too. Boys die sometimes and Death doesn't like when they also continue to live. But for Agatha this is exactly the kind of "fuck you" she wanted to give to Rio.

I love that the show didn't try to make Agatha a good person. This wasn't a redemption story. She hasn't changed. She doesn't care about other people. She kills other witches and doesn't even bother to remember normal people (neither Sharon Davis nor Tommy's names stick to her mind). She just has this one weak spot because she loved unconditionally and selflessly once. And Billy kind of fits into that hole. Even if she hates showing him that.

She resents him because he survived when Nicholas couldn't. Because he is just as his mother who defeated and bound her and actually has power to hurt her. And because her son was exact opposite - she didn't use any magic to make him and that's all that Billy was.

But she cares because Billy is everything Agatha wanted her son to be when he grew up. And because she sees herself in him. Someone who was cursed with power so great it ends up hurting those around him even when he doesn't mean it. Someone who was failed by his own mother because she didn't understand what she created. And just like her he doesn't give up. He fights to live when all the odds are stocked against him. Even if that means death.

I still am not sure what planting that dandelion seed was supposed to accomplish. Except for being a metaphor on Nicky's ephemeral life gone too soon. But I loved Rio telling her the truth Lillia understood - you can't escape death. It will always come, it's only a question of time. No matter if it's just a few short years or centuries. In the end Agatha understood it too and went to the other side. Where she no longer has to worry about Death following her. She has her rebirth as something new.

Agatha once offered Wanda to be her teacher but there was too many possible double crosses in that offer. And Wanda couldn't admit to herself she was a bad guy too. I loved that the season kept reminding us how horrific what she did to people of Westview was. Good intention is what read to hell is paved with.

That this level of power is not something that can be wielded safely. Believing you have full control over it is the fastest way to lose it. And it so easy to justify to yourself that you only did what was necessary. That you didn't mean it. And it's OK. And then it's so hard to stop. Wanda almost didn't.

Billy already knows what it means to kill his own coven for a made up story. Just because he wanted it to be real so much. And maybe it is better to learn on other people's mistakes. Even if your teacher is the Evil Witch.

[csolarstorm]

Thoughts on Agatha All Along - Finale!

Well, I've managed to piece together a post from the notes I took after that awesome two part finale. I enjoyed it a lot, so this is gonna be a long one! So follow me, my friend, as I give my thoughts on Episode 8 and 9 of Agatha All Along.

Now this is one of the most interesting character redemptions I've seen in young adult/family media, because it isn't really a redemption! 

Agatha's redemption goes just as far as her motherly bond with Billy, but other than that, the show is less about redemption and more about retribution.  We thought when Episode 5 said "Punish Agatha", that would be an outlier, a temporary obstacle to the coven coming together.  Nope.  There's too much red - I mean, purple - in Agatha's ledger.  Agatha is who she is, and the show never rewards her for her treachery.  In fact, her cynical, callous worldview costs her everything…even her death.  Agatha is literally reduced to a ghost because she rejects the literal embodiment of the life cycle.  (And she can't face Nicky.)

She's literally "mommy Voldemort"!  That is one of the weirdest things I've ever written!

The only thing Agatha doesn't lose at the end of the series is her bond with Billy - and that's even a close one.  He almost banishes her! That's a fun inversion of the beginning where he deliberately seeks her out. But in mentoring Billy, Agatha has a sort of second chance at parenthood after losing her son. So she is given that grace.

Okay, technically the show does kind of give Agatha the anti-hero treatment, or else she wouldn't end up Billy's mentor.  Clearly Agatha has something to teach Tommy about the nature of power and ruthlessness of the world.  Billy's chaos magic is unfathomably powerful - like his mom, he was bound to accidentally hurt people at some point.  And Agatha was absolutely right about this: "get used to this feeling if you're going to be a witch".  That's unfortunately what being powerful is like.  Think of all the collateral damage the Avengers have caused.  Heck, Wanda at Lagos.  Billy really does take after his mother.

It's the same way in the real world. Any decision a politician makes, money a billionaire invests, has ripple effects the victimize somebody, a shadowy cost to match the reward.

It's one thing to trample others on accident when you swing around your power, but hurting others on purpose actually does actually hurt you, and I think this show expertly portrays that.  It doesn't fall into this trap of making Agatha some amoral badass that people idolize for giving them permission to be assholes.  The power of virtue is not a metaphor, not just a moral gimmick meant to promote societal adhesion.  The callousness of treachery actually affects your ability to form meaningful relationships, which is part of living a satisfying life. Under that facade of bravado and villainy, Agatha is suffering deep inside.  Of course, your mileage may vary, only the good die young, yadda yadda.  There's plenty of happy monsters and sociopaths in the world.

This show has some really interesting parallels with Loki.  You can even argue that Agatha ended up with a parallel but also opposite fate to Loki: a ghost to the world, cut off from life and death.  Only unlike Loki, she can still interact with others.

Agatha All Along DEFINITELY follows Wandavision's footsteps when it comes to flipping audience expectations.  Only this time it's not as simple as Ralph Bohner or those "devils in the details".  Agatha All Along is deliciously character driven, so all the devils in these details are character-related.

The Coven and Sisterhood

Let's start with the biggest "twist": around the middle of the show, the story was about sisterhood: four wayward witches and one familiar setting aside their differences and learning to work together as coven. 

That all goes to hell with Agatha kills Alice and Billy yeets everyone into the mud.  (In retrospect, that's definitely part of why I was disappointed with Episode 5. I could feel the change in direction in the awkward writing.) Sure, Lillia embraces the coven before her death, but Jen definitely does not find kinship with Agatha in the end.  In fact, Agatha screwed her over a hundred years before the show began, and Jen's final challenge is getting away from Agatha's toxic influence. 

And then the whole coven plot definitely goes to hell when it turns out that not only was the road not even real, but the legend of the road itself was just Agatha's lie to lure witches into her coven to murder them over and over again!  Granted we knew that Agatha wanted to kill the coven from the beginning, but this is a whole other layer of deception.

I know this pisses some people off, because obviously it feels like Alice and Lillia died for nothing now - or at least died for a cause they never signed up for.  This was all about resurrecting Tommy, not working together for sisterhood!

Even though the coven didn't last, I think it still matters that it was part of the show, and it was explored. The theme of sisterhood is there. And like Vision said, something is not beautiful because it lasts. 

But I know a lot of people wanted to see this conventional story where everyone survives, and Sharon learns analog witchcraft and her skills come in handy in the last trial when she saves everyone from a sticky situation, and the newfound coven of sisterhood teams up to defy Death and save Agatha and Billy.

That's why we have fanfiction.  *sigh*

Defied Expectations

Speaking of fan disappointment, there's no moment where all is revealed about Agatha's relationship with Rio, at least not all that the fans wanted to see.  Instead, we get an admittedly cute and emotionally compelling flashback to Agatha raising Nicky that shows us exactly how she started the legend of the Witch's Road, and how the ballad started as their song as mother and son.  I'm not disappointed that they went this route instead of a more Rio-centered flashback - I think it brings the story full circle.   

I could tell people were going to be disappointed when Agatha didn't end up in a fulfilling relationship with Rio/Death.  Their relationship had such rich chemistry and it was so intriguing - but to me, the writing was on the wall that it would not be a particularly positive relationship.  I don't imagine Marvel would show a relationship between a serial killer and the embodiment of death and make that a happy, healthy relationship.  My condolences to shippers who wanted this to be a positive representation of lesbian relationships.

And on that note: I'm not sure why Agatha tells Rio that the truth about Nicky's death is too terrible.  Was she absorbing life to keep Nicky alive, and once he refused he finally died? Is that why she says to baby Nicky "You like that? I think we're going to work together just fine."  If this is what they were going for, then yeah that truth is terrible enough for me. Obviously Agatha isn't going to tell the coven she needed to kill other witches to keep Nicky alive.  There's no use trying to rationalize serial murder, even if it's to support your son.

I like how Agatha's name for Nicky follows the "Namor" rule. Since they changed Namor's origin, instead of his name being "Roman" backwards, they made him "N'Amor - the one without love!" So sure, sure, Nicholas Scratch isn't named after Nick Scratch, an old name for the devil, perish the thought! Agatha names him Nicholas Scratch because she made him from scratch. Aww, that honestly was adorable, name retcons aside.

We don't flash back to Agatha's first coven.  The Salem Seven and Evanora originally seem like they're going to be a bigger part in the story, but they're a footnote by the finale.  And although I'm glad they chose the story of Nicky and the origin of the Witch's Road, it would have been nice to commit to actually explaining some of Agatha's actual origin. 

Did Jen's trauma bind her magic?  Nope, Agatha did it.  I mean it doesn't exactly rob us of Jen's trauma narrative - it was still there, implicitly, it's just funny that everything in the series really is Agatha All Along, except for that one big time it was Billy All Along.

Oh, and I guess that one time it was Lillia All Along.  But that's different, that's Patti LuPone.  You have to get Patti Lupone in on the fun.

There are always some editing mistakes in TV shows, but it seems like Marvel needed to go back and tweak some (alleged) discrepancies in the story that don't match the final version of the series, or at stop and clarify things more often.  (For instance, how was Rio "torturing Agatha" throughout the years?  Was she responsible for all the disasters around Agatha, hoping to break her into finally accepting her death?) 

This lack of clarity is a problem with the series overall, to the point that Jac Schaeffer had to keep explaining things that the narrative didn't make clear.  But I have to say, the fact that we were so on the edge of our seats wanting to know means that the story was doing its job.

All Roads Lead To...

So in the end, I think that just like Wandavision, the show went in a direction that a lot of fans weren't expecting - but unlike Wandavision, in some ways I think that's to its benefit.  The coven may not have lasted, but damn that is a richly emotional character study of Agatha Harkness, and I am excited to see "The Ghost and Billy Kaplan" return in Vision Quest, or maybe Young Avengers. 

There were some (alleged) plot holes from Marvel's trademark editing process, and they should have been clearer about some things - but holy triple goddess was this an amazing series nonetheless.  Pound for pound, I think it's the best series Marvel has to offer right now.

Follow me my friend, to glory at the end.

[murfpersonalblog]

Hello! I have been engaging in your analysis recently and I am satisfied by how thorough and sourced they are. I have been thinking about the possible parallel between Gabrielle and Louis of late and I was wondering if you think anything about it being possibly explored in the show. Gabrielle is masc presenting so I wonder if Louis' feminity will also be explored. There's so much I'm wondering!

Omg thanks so much for asking, and thanks for liking my stuff @timotheeronan! Tuck yourself in for a long AF post, cuz I've been wanting to get things off my chest about Gabrielle for a while (X X).

I FULLY expect S3 to make parallels between Gabrielle & Louis, yes. Their complex power dynamics with Lestat as Mother/Son, Fledgling/Maker are interwoven with their roles as spouses: Gabrielle as the Marquis' literal unhappy housewife AND Les' temporary Blood Spouse; and Louis as Lestat's metaphorical "unhappy housewife" and endgame Blood Spouse; and the ways they BOTH broke away from this to forge their own identities separate/free from him; "I'm companion enough for myself now."

On top of this, there's the CRUCIAL exploration of gender expression Gabrielle goes through. Gabrielle is so iconic, as someone I've seen over the decades labelled as everything from a feminist icon to masc presenting to GNC to nonbinary to trans to etc etc. It HAS to happen, I'd be shocked & appalled if it doesn't. Esp. considering how Les reacts (both positively AND negatively), wrt those aforementioned socio-gendered power dynamics & roles.

Cuz like I've BEEN stressing wrt Les' Matador pjs & Mardi Gras dress (X X); and Louis' power suits & cardigans: clothes are just ONE aspect of a larger societal framework these characters are operating under (x x x x). There's a "visual hierarchy of power" Carol Cutshall describes, where clothes reflect MORE than just gender expression, but also reflect power: agency/autonomy/freedom, or the lack thereof. Gab's masculine presentation goes farther than just her outward appearance on the surface. Deeper, there's what it says about how she felt about her her immediate relationship with Lestat, and her broader treatment & place in her family, and the world at large. Clothes can be a form of resistance; a power move.

So if S3's take on TVL goes the direction I hope/think it will, Lestat's Redemption Tour will be part defensive/reflective, as he deals with his repressed traumas and the many wrongs done to him; but also the many wrongs he's done to others: Louis & Gabrielle (and ofc Claudia & Nicki).

Cuz contrary to what braindead fans/stans lead people to believe, AMC's adaptation is 100% about the cycles of abuse & trauma; and how power imbalances between vampires are merely a reflection of IRL social inequality due to things like class, race, and gender; which vampires just DELUDE themselves into thinking they're above; but meanwhile can't help but perpetuate--cuz they ARE still human.

Whatever this "documentary/tour" manifests as, Les is gonna have to be confronted with the ways that his actions in the past impacted his actions in the present; so that Les realizes he needs to course-correct in the future, to become a better person/monster/vampire "WORTHY of Louis' love" and forgiveness.

But he also has to reconcile with his mother; when Gabrielle finally reappears after ~200 years of deliberate radio silence (x x). She follows him on his tour when he pisses off the vampires of the world & they try to kill him (& Lou) for blabbing about their secrets.

In QotD, Les, Lou & Gabe share close quarters with one another for Les' tour. When he's is kidnapped by Akasha, Lou & Gab team up together as they grieve his absence & wait/hope for Les' return, forming their own bond.

So I'd bet Monopoly dollars that AMC's take on TVL & QotD will be an effing circus full of funhouse mirrors being held up to their faces, as they all see aspects of themselves (reflections of the past repeating itself) in each other. It's gonna bring up uncomfortable truths; but help them all better understand/realize WHY Les is drawn to Gab & Lou and loves them so much, but also where he went wrong with both of them; and where they went wrong with him, too.

And it all boils down to Family vs Freedom.

Les' oppressive nature come from his overwhelming outpouring of love. Lovebombing is his love language; overcompensating for how he felt insecure & inadequate & ashamed. He wants what's best for his loves, but he also thinks he KNOWS what's best for them, too. He hated being poor country-nobility, broke as a joke in that crumbling chateau. He was ashamed. When faced with the horrific reality of his mother dying, his grief's wrapped up in wondering about the things she'd wanted, & fantasizing about the all things he'd wanted for her.

Cuz their relationship, as strained as it was, was marked with "grand and loving gestures" of GIFT-giving.

Les saved both Gab & Lou's life when he Turned them. Lou was suicidal (& no doubt careening towards alcohol poisoning); while Gab was dying of consumption. The Dark Gift is his ultimate show of love for those Les turns, his way of saying: I love you, I want you to live forever, and I wanna live WITH you forever, "be my companion;" we can keep each other company forever. But because vampirism is damned/cursed, the gift comes at the price of him potentially losing them anyway--cuz vampirism gives them power, and ultimately: freedom. (Hence: Les' abandonment issues.)

For Gabrielle, an 18th-century woman trapped in that awful chateau with that awful abusive husband raising awful abusive sons, books were her escape from reality; and her library was her nest/shelter.

We don't get much of Gab's POV/thoughts, but Anne Rice talked at length about how books & stories & writing were her outlet/escape; her Dreamworld when she was lonely/depressed/grieving/etc.

"Sometime in that year when seven-year-old Alice was gone for hours every day, my personal dreamworld was born, the detailed and complex paracosm in which I started to live the major portion of every day with my own secretly imagined characters. I know for certain that the dreamworld was in full swing by the time I was eight, and had been with me “forever.” And several of the characters who peopled that dreamworld then in 1949 are still with me today in a vivid cast of thousands.".... "Now and then I abandon the ancient dreamworld. But I have never since 2005 abandoned the primal dreamworld, the most important one, the one born to me when I was a little girl, the one that existed from the 1940s up through the early 1990s without interruption, and that is with me now every day. I myself am not in this dreamworld. There is no place in it for someone like me. I’ve had fantasies of actually discovering it, or being somehow transported to it, but I play no role in it whatsoever. I watch and listen and inhabit its various characters individually, just as I do characters in my books.... "Before I draw the obvious comparison between this dreamworld and the world of the Vampire Chronicles, I want to make several specific points about the dreamworld...." -- Anne Rice: Alphabettery

Gabrielle H A T E D being jailed/cooped up that chateau as much as Les did--heck, she likely hated it even MORE; cuz unlike her son (a MAN free to go out and hunt & act & preach--if his father let him, ofc), a WOMAN/"tradwife" was to be seen not heard.

Some of the only times she really makes herself heard--exerting her limited agency/autonomy/freedom--is when she's FIGHTING Les' FATHER the Marquis, to DEFEND HER CHILD's agency/autonomy/freedom (the Mama Bear to Lou's Papa Bear with Claudia (x x)).

Cuz ironically, SHE was the breadwinner in the family--it was HER dowry money that financed everything, when the shiftless de Lioncourts went broke generations ago. (And we see the same family dynamic with Louis' family, where Papa DPDL ran the estate into bankruptcy, and Levi Freniere mooched off of Grace--how "tradwives" had to become independent & self-sustaining & break social norms & become the surrogate head of the household when the patriarch let them down; and how that affected Lou's struggle for self-worth when it was left to him to become the (reluctant) man of the family--it's a VERY familiar scene fort Les, and another reason why he felt akin to Louis. But (as usual) Lou FAILS where Gabrielle succeeds--he loses the Azalea, and becomes a cripple after getting dropped 2km from the sky; so Claudia becomes HIS mother, defending him from THEIR p.o.s. patriarch, Lestat; exerting her own limited agency--but pressuring Lou to do the same (the Murder Plot).)

She squirrels her jewels under her pillows, withholding her money so the Marquis & her sons don't BLOW it all; withholds her knowledge/literacy cuz they don't value/respect it; withholds her affections cuz they HAVE blown it. Gab's outnumbered in that medieval castle stuffed to the gills with toxic masculinity; she hates her husband; pumps out sons he raised to disrespect & ignore her; is isolated in the middle-of-nowhere Auvergne; & depressed AF. She resented her life; and comforted herself with books. She loved Les the most, but she kept him at arms length too. Les loved his mother the most, but he resented her, too.

I see so many posts about how "selfish" Gab is, and I'm like this is the same exact nasty AF attitude people have against AMC!Lou. They're DEPRESSED, ffs! The same women online who go on & on about feminism & misogyny & female autonomy/agency & how men don't understand/respect postpartum depression and battered-wife syndrome; and then look at Gabrielle AND Louis like they've got two heads just cuz they don't kiss blorbo Lestat's arse 24/7, like wtF????

YES, depression can express itself as petty spite & meanness/coldness & resentful hostility. Gab never taught Les how to read, cuz the books were her comfort/escape FROM motherhood/reality; just like Lou's books were his comfort/escape FROM vampirism/reality (read: violence/homosexuality/marriage/Lestat). It's an ANNE RICE self-insert about her lifelong "Dreamworld"--ALL of her characters represent parts of herself at different times in her life.

They're UNHAPPY, and only find pleasure in the fantasy of stories--ofc Gab wouldn't want Les intruding on her Me Time by teaching him how to read--esp. when Les could be sent to the church to learn instead--which he was. (Unfortunately, his father only wanted him there long enough to learn the basics, not to commit himself to the church as a priest.)

Art imitates life--fantasy tv shows about vampires included. Les' behavior is PATENTLY familiar, and I fully expect S3 will mirror plenty of celebrity scandals involving IPV--Chris Brown's Apology Tour to the press immediately comes to mind, after he beat the breaks off of Rihanna. There are countless IRL cases where battered/abused/depressed women are negligent to their kids; and those kids grow up to be abusive to their own partners & families:

"Rocky was...high-strung, jittery. Energetic. (His family describes him slightly differently, as quiet and sometimes devious, also on the shy side.) Before he shot himself [and his wife Michelle Monson Mosure, and their 3 kids in 2001]...he’d written a message on his arms. No one was meant to see it, and no one can exactly remember what it said. Something like 'I deserve to go to hell.'" "Rocky was quiet...troubled, rebellious, but he loved the outdoors. Fishing, camping...the outdoor stuff, the quiet, even his real name, Gordon, he shared with his father. The nickname had come from his dad when Rocky was a baby, a tribute to the boxer Rocky Marciano. Gordon and his first wife, Linda, had three kids, of whom Rocky was the eldest.... When they divorced, Linda gave him full custody of all three kids.... [Gordon] had met someone at work pretty quickly after he and Linda separated: Sarah.... Although the kids had always had some trouble with school, after the move Gordon and Sarah discovered the kids were further behind than they’d realized, and though they hired tutors, the kids remained behind. None of them wound up graduating. Gordon claims that Linda planted the kids in front of the television or dragged them around with her wherever she went during the day, shopping or whatever. “Instead of teaching them ABCs and all this, they hadn’t gotten any of that,” Gordon says. When I spoke with Linda she remembered things differently, of course.... Rocky was in trouble after the move almost immediately.... By seventh grade, Sarah and Gordon knew Rocky needed help. They sent him to Pine Hills, the home for troubled boys.... In a family counseling session once, the therapist asked Rocky if he was sad his mother had left, and he said...'Yeah, it was better after she was gone because then we got to hang out with [Dad] more, but not have the big fighting between them.'" -- No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Louise Snyder

-- Letellier & Island: Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence

Lestans keep acting like he's called an abuser out of thin frikkin air; that there are no parallels b/t Loustat's dynamic and IRL cases; and that Les's above censure just cuz he's nicer in the later books. Yeah he gets better--cuz he got REJECTED by Gabrielle/Nicki/Louis, BESTED by Claudia, HUMBLED by Akasha, DUPED by Raglan, TORTURED by Memnoch, and CHALLENGED by Rhoshamandes! Les LITERALLY went to Hell, for crissakes!

(x x)

Les pulled ish on Lou that he would NEVER pull on Gab, specifically BECAUSE she's his MOTHER. Les had a HARD time divorcing that image from his mind, even when he reveled in the power vampirism gave them to be free, and live the lives they'd always dreamed of back at the chateau.

Even when he knew she was The Vampire Gabrielle, and he was her Maker/companion/paramour, he held onto that image of her as his mother--"my mother's boy, my mother's man" (a la the pilot script).

The Vampire Gabrielle fully embraced her new identity; being an apex predator (better than even Les did; she's a BAMF), shedding all human attachments & trivialities (the social constructs of long hair & dresses; morals & mores alike). But that came at the cost of her shedding her her motherly role too. She was finally TRIUMPHANT: POWERFUL & FREE, and she dressed accordingly: as a man, with all of the societal affordances, liberties & freedoms that entailed.

(Gabrielle & Nicki & Louis are even tied together through Paris' Ile Saint Louis, where Nickistat lived & loved; and where Les turned Gabrielle.)

Patriarchal male privilege and vampiric gendered liberation for Gab works similarly but differently/separate but equal than it does for AMC!Louis, not just cuz of his sexuality, but esp. cuz of his race. As usual, Gab triumphs where Lou fails. Although he IS a man, he's a gay BLACK man, which put him even lower on the racist/sexist social hierarchical pyramid than a white woman (Gab included). From slavery times (Gab) to Jim Crow (Lou) down to the Civil Rights Movement, the youngest white girl (called "Miss") had more rights than the oldest Black man (called "boy"). For all Les' promises that he & his fledglings would be "equals in the quiet dark," white male Les was the ONLY one with rights over BOTH of them--as such, they're both on similar levels in Coven Master Lestat's household; even when they tried to exert their own autonomy. (The same holds true for Lou & Claudia, ALSO put on the same level.)

Les was just as conflicted with book!Gab's newfound freedom & choice of victims as he was with AMC!Lou's, for opposite but similar reasons, all boiling down to how HE thought his fledglings should act. On one hand he encouraged embracing vampiric nature, while on the other hand wanting to curb their killing to fit human laws he swore didn't matter anymore, like wtf--am I a lion(court) or a housecat? He was a pisspoor teacher to Gab AND Lou (and yet people wanna point the finger at Gab & Lou for leaving him, or blame megaladon!Armand for taking advantage of Lou' & Claudia's ignorance, like HUH?!?)

[EDITED TO ADD:] Lou & Gab are both oppressed by societal/gendered expectations. For Gabrielle, tradwife domesticity/femininity was her performance, her CAGE/JAIL. The masculine ideal for her was being someone like Wolfkiller Lestat: a macho hunter, slaying dangerous animals in the wilderness, dressed in men's clothes with her hair cropped short; not being called "Mother" anymore or having to raise kids & deal with her psycho husband.

[EDITED TO ADD:] But that macho-masculinity was performance for Lou ("Did I WANT to pull a knife on my brother? NO."). He was a "rougher thing, then," passing as straight, and it made him miserable. He wanted a completely opposite life (the domesticity of being boo'd up at home with his man, always dressed in cardigans, "smothering" his daughter Claudia, and just being a homemaker)--but what is the opposite of masculinity but femininity? What's the opposite of a businessman but a tradwife (the feminine ideal pre-feminism)? How can his pride/life as a Black man tryna be respected in a white world survive without nosey white women like Antoinette & homophobic white cops always asking about his 1 bed upstairs? For Lou, domesticity/"femininity" was FREEDOM--until Les took advantage of Lou's vulnerability and the townhouse became his CAGE/JAIL; and he became just as miserable as Gabrielle was--cycles cycling.

And unlike Gabrielle de Lioncourt, who had the honor of being Les' biological mother/maker/creator (the one who knew everything about him), with the almost sacred idea(l) of her in his head as his childhood champion/savior that allowed him to defer to her and accept her wanting to do & go her own way, even as he clung to the idea(l) of his "Mother" that made him resent her abandoning him (again); Louis had no such privilege.

Les was HIS Maker--"I put you on this earth." "I chose you!" Lou was CREATED to be Les' person: his bespoke companion; groomed & Vegas Married to not know a thing about Les' past/nature that Les didn't want him to know; seduced to love the monster first (not the man). Les expected Lou to be happy; not reject Les/vampirism & read books at home rather than go on sexcapades & killing sprees; ashamed of his true nature full of "self-loathing" he projected at Les.

Even when Lou was too weak & hungry to have sex, he still spent his time reading; and cuz Les can't read his mind, it's the best way to shut out everything and focus on his fantasy rather than his body's needs, let alone Les' emotional needs. He gets so much worse during the Great Depression, when Claudia's gone & he's given up all pretenses that he's anything but the "unhappy housewife;" and Les gives up the pretenses of not resenting Lou for "not honoring the Blood [read: ME] as he should." Hence: Ep5; "crushing what you cannot own;" and Les pissing all over Lou's name & reputation in the Trial; as abusers often blame their victims, or outright lie to make them seem crazy, evil, or abusive.

Thankfully, Les has already come face to face with how effed up the Trial was, and how badly his participation in the Trial/smear campaign hurt Lou's feelings; "Come to Me!? Those were HIS words! F-- you!"

So while I fully expect S3 Les to emphasize his own childhood traumas & abuse, and while I fear Gabrielle will carry the lion's share of censure in Les' POV (and in the fandom) for abandoning him, hopefully Les doesn't do what many abusers do and make it all about him and his man-pain. Hopefully he's candid about how Gab was wronged too (by his p.o.s. dad & brothers, AND he himself); and that his resentments towards Gabrielle bled into his resentments towards Louis. But I ALSO expect Les to still have self-improvement to do--TVL/QotD is NOT where he pivots from being an a-hole to a saint; he does some ATROCIOUS stuff in those books, and in TotBT.

The Prince Lestat trilogy is Les's final redemption arc, his pride humbled & then rewarded--and even then he's still a work-in-progress ("I'm, a lot, I'm not perfect").

Lou (& Claudia) emancipated themselves from Massa Lestat after the Murder Plot (or at least, Lou tries to--Loustat canonical endgame, after all). But they only get back together after a long period of on/off stints, as Les gradually figured out how to be a normal effing person for once; and how to respect Lou's agency/autonomy/freedom.

Likewise, his relationship with Gabrielle also vastly "improves," as she, like Lou in PLAtRoA, finally decides to live with Les at the renovated Chateau de Lioncourt; letting go of the past to build something new.

But he STILL can't help but revert to treating her like his bride/wife, doll, and mother, all in one (until she gets sick of it, ofc, LOL).

At Prince Les' celebratory Winter Solstice fete in BC, Gab dresses to the nines as the belle of the ball to please him, as Queen Mother of his Vampire Court; just as Lou's his Prince Consort/Blood Spouse. Les gets everything he ever wanted, his happily ever after, and AR tries to make you feel he "earned" their forgiveness, but YMMV.

TL;DR:

Regardless of what Gab presents as externally, or the way she WANTS to be treated; the way Lestat TREATS her is consistent with the way HE thinks it is appropriate for her to be treated BY him--same with Louis. Gender/sexuality/race be darned--Les "wins" by virtue of being the white cis male protagonist & hero of TVC. 🙄

So yeah, I expect/hope S3 will show a lot of subtle/nuanced parallels & even explicit intersections b/t Gabrielle & Lou. But I don't expect them to dump it on us all at once, cuz this process of accountability, forgiveness & acceptance is protracted over the entire length of TVC, all the way to the very last book.

Hope my long AF rambling & tangents answered your question even a little bit, omfg. 🤦😅

[rosesocietyy]

Mulling on Lestat the musical again and I think the crux of the problem was it got crushed under the weight of its own ambition. The stories Elton John and Linda Woolverton have worked on before appear epic, but are actually quite contained; the lion king, aida, etc. Lestat's tale is too vast and meandering and trying to fit all that lore in 2 hrs, told almost exclusively through quite generic ballads (I'm guessing as an attempt to invoke the time period) was both too much and somehow painfully dull. Too much was happening too fast for you to care about anything. Les Mis was an anomaly, don't attempt to recreate it.

An effective approach would have been something akin to The Great Comet. Take a snippet out of the whole story, focus on that, and be a little experimental with the music. Or don't, the music can still be conventional, but the scope must be smaller. And don't be scared to go crazy, anne certainly wasn't. The main themes might be a little different when separated from the book series as a whole but that's alright, it still works as an individual piece of art.

They could tell a tragic story of the boy who finally made it out and escaped his father's bruising temper, his mother's passivity, and village's accusing eyes, only to have that life he's painstakingly built for himself stolen from him by a monster. It ignores the aspects of lestat that came with his vampirism but that's a fair trade off. This can end with Nicki killing himself, let that be the harrowing end. They can add their own creative spin to it, change the era, make it a folk opera, or something akin to cabaret, the possibilities aren't endless but they're quite a lot.

Or, they could make a 2hr introspection on the rise and fall of a relationship that starts Louis and lestat meeting and ends with lestat dying. Basically season one. Tackle intersectional issues with vampirism as a backdrop, or as a metaphor, take your pic. They can play with the structure a la The last five years; in fact the interview structure itself is already primed and ready for the stage, there's not much to tweak. Let the music rise and fall with their madness. I want to feel as suffocated as Louis does in small box lestat calls love.

They could go even smaller, make it about Claudia, birth to death. How everyone in her life failed her over and over and over again, the lament of a girl who was never truly seen. The framing device is Louis finding all her diaries and reading it for the first time and having a mental breakdown at the end.

There are so many fascinating segments one can zero in on to extract a gem, and as much as I hate to say it, that's kinda the beauty of anne's narrative clusterfuck. I truly hope one day another write and composer would take another look at her world and give it a genuine shot, there's gold waiting to be mined in there.

[ch3ri-ch3ri-lady]

one thing i’m super curious for in s2 of iwtv is how they’re going to handle the character of madeleine.

in the novel and 1994 movie, claudia forced louis to make madeleine to become her new adoptive mother-this was (along with other reasons) because in order to have any semblance of a life, claudia quite literally NEEDED an adult vampire. At age 5 (book) or 11 (movie), you literally can’t DO anything independently-rent an apartment, live on your own, travel on your own, etc. in a way, madeleine was almost more of claudia’s glorified servant/chauffeur, as she resented fulfilling the role of daughter and longed for adulthood/independence more than anything else. madeleine was a necessity.

madeleine’s personality was also perfect for claudia’s needs. she was a woman driven mad with grief and obsessed with children, she would mindlessly do anything for claudia in a heartbeat and the idea of spending an eternity with an immortal, never-ageing and never-dying daughter was a dream come true for her. of COURSE she’d become her vampire companion (*cough* servant). plus, the added factor that she was a dollmaker and could tailor any clothes/objects to claudia’s child size was definitely an added bonus (like in her miniature adult room, she could dress up in the clothes and pretend at the lifestyle she was always deprived of behind the safety of closed doors. she also really is lestat’s mini me lol and has his eye/appreciation for the finer things and materialism, as opposed to sweaters-eaten-by-moths dad louis)

however, amc claudia is 14, an astronomically different age independence wise compared to 5 or even 11. it’s established in s1 that with some clothes and makeup she can somewhat successfully pass as older, and she was able to live relatively functionally on her own during her era away from louis and lestat. unlike her book/movie counterpart, she doesn’t REQUIRE a physically adult presence in her life. instead we see there is a much greater emphasis on her love life (ex: charlie) and desire for emotional companionship. also, she COMPLETELY resents her status as a “daughter”, switching to referring to louis and lestat as her brothers because she wants to remove herself from that dynamic completely. narratively, it would make no sense for her to make a new parent after working so hard to get rid of that dynamic with her old ones. this is why i (and many other fans i’ve seen) wonder if madeleine is going to be aged down and become her girlfriend/lover in s2 instead.

i think this would also draw some more sweet sweet parallels between her and lestat. both lestat’s first fledgeling/relationship (nicki) and claudia’s (madeleine, and yes, ik louis is technically her maker but he rlly wanted nothing to do w/ her the whole time and the only reason claudia wasn’t her maker was because she was physically incapable of doing so) impulsively believed their mental issues and anguish would be resolved with vampirism when in actuality they only worsened it and made them “mad” (i.e. nicki’s eventual suicide and madeleine’s growing mental instability and just generally freakish behaviour. i feel like it’s not too far of a stretch to say that if she wasn’t killed it wouldn’t have taken long for her to crash and burn too). the lestat/nicki and claudia/madeleine comparisons would be sooo much stronger if madeleine was her lover as well (espc her first serious AND queer relationship, just like nickistat).

claudia and lestat are soo similar and i feel like this wasn’t explored enough in s1. i hope that as the unreliable narration or suspected memory tampering “unravels”, we see more of their dynamic. like, claudia was lestat’s BABY. deep down he was proud of how claudia killed him-because he admitted that if he was in her situation, she did everything the exact same way he would have. AAGH.

(on a side note, i wonder how they’d change up this metaphorical gf!madeleine’s backstory to accommodate the changes. she would still need to be off putting, deeply disturbed/internally tormented, and probably Not That Good Of A Person To Choose To Make Into A Vampire™, but her original backstory of “dead daughter who she creepily makes hundreds of doll replicas of to cope” would have to switch up (i’m maybe banking on something related to wwii, considering the setting of a just-liberated 1940s paris)

anyways lmk ur thoughts

[lestatetlouis]

reading “thread”: the vampire lestat, part iv: chapter iv (pt. 3)

[AUUUUUU.mp4]

the whole “bird flying further away from the natural world and drifting into darkness” metaphor for the depression that nicki has is so on point. at its worst, it really feels like this, this is too relatable. when you’re in pitch black darkness you can’t really register anything.

and it’s something that lestat goes through existential dread and panic attacks with it, but so far he hasn’t been described as someone who has the same brand of depression as nicki. at least, there is somewhat of a distinction between lestat’s episode and what nicki goes through that seems way more chronic.

so he does have hints, from nicki opening up once about it to once he becomes a vampire and he can feel that there’s smth off with nicki - but most of it is a projection of the disease on nicki’s feelings towards lestat. still, he can’t really grasp it, so this is a one of a kind opportunity for someone who doesn’t have these issues to truly understand the complexity of it all, which is something us with depression also struggle with because we don’t want people to go through that, but we’d like them to actually know what it’s like to get us.

but because lestat had vastly underestimated all the signs, when he’s actually given the opportunity to step in nicki’s shoes he’s basically asking the world to stop because he needs to come off it.

i do wonder if gabrielle was able to keep track of the ordeal through nicki’s perspective of it, and thus at least “feel” how much in despair lestat was. i’m saying this because for once since her turning she actually puts herself back in the role of a mother and addresses him directly as her son, and the imaginary around her is also the one of a mother (the most famous mother of all time, i’d say).

to rephrase this: lestat says back in part i gabrielle was only capable of reaching him (even if in a distanced manner) as a mother when he was under severe pain or stress, so her being there for him, even if it’s to say it’s a disaster, but still commiserating and aware that her presence and her acknowledgement of their familial bond is the biggest support she could give is rooted in her awareness of lestat’s pain in this situation.

i get hints of upcoming jealousy - gabrielle is looking after nicki (kind of like you’d expect for a son?) and they have now the ability to talk to each other out of lestat’s reach. lestat looking them from afar while they move together feels like he now feels alienated from them both.

i do think the clothes are apt but not from the cleric pov, but from the “gabrielle is dressing him for his funeral lol” pov

on one hand, i get where lestat is coming from: nicki just unleashed Depression 2 on him, when he did so lestat probably understood how nicki actually felt about everything him included, and then stole his mom.

plus, this is consistent: when lestat found out his mother was physically dying, he spent a long time avoiding her. now, he finds out his bf is emotionally dead, and is also avoidant of him. like, lestat is good at this game, and nicki will now be forever a reminder of the pain of the vision, of course he would want to shake away that whichever way possible.

doesn’t not make it an L though, i guess.

and this is it for chapter 4! see you soon for chapter 5!

[ike-mcswains-mortician]

Hi uh late response to your question however! I wrote them all down so prepare yourself this will be a long text:

Darryl: Human with magic powers (doesn’t accept it until later in life- metaphor cough cough) 

Carol: Human with magic (Has contact with Mercedes) 

Grant: Human with learnt magic 

Marco: Human without magic 

Linc: Demigod child- God of Sunlight

Henry: God of the Earth

Mercedes: God of Nature (basically mother earth) 

Sparrow: God of Flora (like her mum!) 

Lark: God of Beasts/Fauna (Changed to god of beasts in his teens) 

Rebecca: Human with learnt magic

Normal: Demigod of Joy 

Hero: A Hercules kind of person- her quest is to kill the Doodler obviously 

Glenn: God of festivities

Morgan: Underworld god 

Jodie: Literally Hades/King of the underworld 

Nicky: Prince of the Underworld

Cassandra: Human with magic

Taylor: Demi-demon of the underworld (demi demon?) 

Ron: Human (he’s a simple guy!) 

Samantha: God of healing

Terry: Demigod with learnt magic

Veronica: Human with learnt magic

Scary: Demigod of Tragedy 

Scam-likely: Chaos god (of course) 

Hermie: God of Theatre

Dood: Chaos entity 

(I just realised this could be in post form but anyhow- hope you enjoy the craziness of this au!)

hi!!! even later response to YOUR ask uhhh sorry about that!! I had no access to tumblr literally all day lmao

ANYWAY!!!!!! I LOVE THIS!!!!! Ron especially got me good. he is just a simple guy!! and Hero/Hercules is making me UPSET (/pos)

all of these are amazing and I am getting so much secondhand brainrot from all of this /pos PLEASE keep sending me updates!!!

[dotthings]

Kung Fu episode 3.08, the midseason finale and it’s a doozy. Extra props to Olivia Liang, who always brings strength and grace and vulnerability in her depiction of Nicky every episode, but she really escalated her game in this one.

Nicky’s trauma over Xiao’s attack on her parents and her sister Althea combined with her sense of betrayal as she realizes Bo was involved hits her deer in headlights. After her ferocity defending her family, she dissassociates a little from the frantic activity of her family in crisis mode. She’s terrified by this direct attack on her family, in their home, by the sight of her mother bleeding.

She loves very deeply and she loves her family and she loves others so someone she trusted and gave her heart to being part of this attack, plus her beloved Shifu Pei-Ling being used to attack her family.

It’s a lot. And she’s blaming herself for so many people she loves being put in danger. The self-blame. ‘I let him Bo in, I gave him the blade” “It’s my fault Xiao has Pei-Ling” “I should have seen through him”

We get Bo back story, and it���s not that it excuses him, but he was a young, frightened child and completely alone when Xiao found him and started manipulating him. Child Bo having a unique ability that manifested without warning, trapped in some kind of depleted apocalypse world. He would be extremely vulnerable to Xiao. Who blackmailed him emotionally—there’s no one else who can help you except me—and spun him a pack of lies about herself and her motives. So he believed she entirely a victim, he didn’t let himself see her ambition and greed. So he believed she was good and that she was intending to free the souls. “She’s my shifu”

Now he’s waking up to Xiao’s true nature. “I would have done anything for you. I did horrible things. This whole time I was just a pawn?”
“Yes.”

At least she’s honest about it.

“I told you to watch her. You’re the one who got involved.”

It wasn’t Xiao’s idea to emotionally manipulate Nicky and it wasn’t what Bo was setting out to do. He’s still dishonest but he did fall in love with Nicky and hadn’t yet woken up to how corrupt his shifu is.

Sebastian leaving, oh no. Mei-Li is very comforting to Ryan about it, she’s right about how overwhelming things are for Sebastian (who is a bit of a mirror to Nicky’s self blame) and he needs time, he’ll work it through and he’ll come back. But I’m sure it won’t be easy. I’m looking forward to seeing what Sebastian’s arc on his journey back looks like.

Ryan is coping about as well as he can and being the smartie and solving the puzzle again. But the sadness is hovering over him, with Sebastian gone. And on Mei-Li, but like Ryan she keeps on going.

With a little ascerbic comment to Carrie about being down a chef.

Mei-Li building a better dumpling for the mass market, crunching numbers, and going over Carrie’s head and taking initiative to protect her standards for Harmony Dumplings, that will still make a profit even if it doesn’t meet corporate’s “target” and Carrie (played by the wonderful Kim Rhodes who has to walk a line with Carrie, making her brittle and something of an antagonist for Mei-Li yet not an enemy) has to respect it.

And I’m going to say the quiet part out loud — metaphor for creatives in the tv industry having to convince corporate.

Jin advocating for systemic change, for rehab, for better care within a community, as crime prevention, rather than adding cops and rent-a-cops.

A lot of genre relies on world-without-parents, or they are involved peripherally. And a lot of genre plots hinging on the trauma parents inflict. Kung Fu stands out as a show where Mei-Li and Jin are supportive and nurturing, have some short-sightenedness and vulnerabilities and flaws, who get to grow along with the younger characters, and show their comptencies, experiences, and strengths.

The sense of family and community is so strong on Kung Fu, both by blood and chosen family circles and the community around them.

Nicky’s very single minded and going over the edge throughout this ep but I did enjoy the Henry: Nicky, no Nicky: Nicky YES vibes where Nicky knocks out the cops who catch Nicky, Henry, and Zhilan breaking in to steal evidence.

Also I need more team Nicky, Henry, and Zhilan.

But Nicky is really not okay and going over the edge, and in her confrontation with Bo, she loses her grip. Her hurt, her guilt, her sense of betrayal, her anger, spills over as she beats up Bo in a way we haven’t seen Nicky go against an enemy before. She does as much as she has to and no further, usually. She stops herself short of killing Bo.

And afterwards she completely falls apart. She can’t wash that blood off her psyche and can’t even wash it all off her hands.

That final scene with shattered Nicky, who was about to run off somewhere, instead sobbing in her father’s arms. Because Jin finds her and intercepts her on the way out the door. Oh my HEART.

[2001hz]

RIP VIrgil Abloh

Virgil Abloh died on November 28, 2021, after a private battle with cardiac angiosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. He was 41. The Off-White founder and Men’s Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton was most recently seen in Doha, Qatar, at the opening of his exhibition “Figures of Speech.”

Personal Life/A Hero Is Born :

Abloh was born on September 30 outside of Chicago. He and his sister are raised in nearby Rockford, by Ghanaian immigrant parents. Abloh attends the Boylan Catholic High School—official colors green and white—and graduates in 1998. His mother is a seamstress and teaches him the tricks of her trade.

Abloh completes his undergraduate degree in civil engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. (In 2015, he would return to design commemorative tees for the university.) Rumor has it that on the day of his graduation, he skips his final critique to take a meeting with Kanye West’s then-manager John Monopoly. West and Abloh begin officially working together soon after.

In 2006 Abloh completes his master’s degree in architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology. During his time at IIT, a Rem Koolhaas building is completed, which Abloh says, “piqued my interest and opened my gateway into fashion.”

The Beginning Of A Legend:

In 2009 Abloh and West become interns at Fendi in Rome. Louis Vuitton CEO Michael Burke recently told The New York Times, “I was really impressed with how [Abloh and West] brought a whole new vibe to the studio and were disruptive in the best way. Virgil could create a metaphor and a new vocabulary to describe something as old-school as Fendi. I have been following his career ever since.”

Abloh and West, along with a crew of famous friends, make the rounds at Paris Fashion Week, turning heads in the process. They’re photographed by Tommy Ton for http://Style.com outside of the Comme des Garçons show in what becomes a widely circulated pic. Abloh tells W magazine, “We were a generation that was interested in fashion and weren’t supposed to be there. We saw this as our chance to participate and make current culture. In a lot of ways, it felt like we were bringing more excitement than the industry was.”

In 2010 Abloh officially assumes the role of creative director at Donda, West’s creative agency.

In 2011 Abloh art directs the album Watch the Throne by Jay-Z and West, an achievement that earns him a Grammy nomination. The album cover is designed by Riccardo Tisci, then the creative director of Givenchy, a role Abloh was rumored to be up for after “Tisci’s departure” in 2017.

It’s 2012 Abloh launches his first brand, Pyrex Vision, in New York. He purchased deadstock Ralph Lauren flannel shirts for $40 each, and screen printed them with the word Pyrex and the number 23, an homage to his childhood hero, Michael Jordan. They sell for $550 each.

2013, Abloh shutters Pyrex and founds Off-White, a multi-platform creative endeavor based in Milan. Its main medium is fashion. At Off-White, he combines ideas of streetwear, luxury, art, music, and travel, defining the brand simply as, “the gray area between black and white as the color Off-White.” From the get-go, hovering quotation marks become Abloh’s signature.

In 2014 Abloh launches womenswear for Off-White and begins showing his men’s and women’s collections during Paris Fashion Week.

2015 Abloh’s womenswear operation gains steam when Beyoncé wears a palm-print sweatshirt with the word Nebraska on it, an homage to Raf Simons’s Fall 2002 Virginia Creepers collection, in Nicki Minaj’s video for “Feeling Myself.” That same year, Off-White is named a finalist for the LVMH Prize. He loses the grand prize and special prize to Marques’Almeida and Jacquemus, respectively.

i’m 2016 Abloh opens his first concept store in the Aoyama area of Tokyo. The store features a watercooler with Off-White branded cups that visitors take for free and resell on the secondary market.

Abloh debuts his Grey Area furniture collection in Milan, his first furniture venture under the Off-White brand. It features iron grid chairs, benches, and tables with leather cushions and Carrara marble tops.

In 2017, Even with the announcement of a collaborative exhibition with Takashi Murakami opening at Gagosian; the release of his first song; the opening of his New York store; the British Fashion Award for Urban Luxe Brand; and collaborations with Warby Parker, Jacob the Jeweler, and Jimmy Choo, the biggest news for Abloh in 2017 is The Ten, his sneaker partnership with Nike. Abloh re-creates 10 of Nike’s iconic silhouettes in a work-in-progress style, each adorned with a safety tag around the laces. The limited release leaves the sneaker market hungry for more, and Abloh hosts panels and workshops with Nike and additional releases throughout the year.

17 Year Old Virgil Is Very Proud:

2018 Virgil Abloh is named the artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear collections, stepping into the role vacated by his friend and mentor Kim Jones. “It is an honor for me to accept this position. I find the heritage and creative integrity of the house are key inspirations and will look to reference them both while drawing parallels to modern times,” he says in a statement.

2019. Virgil Alboh’s artworks will be the subject of an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and his Ikea collaboration will be released through the brand’s international stores.

Virgil Abloh. A Hero. A Black Superhero. Who Left An Impact In Everyone’s Life, This Is Not The End His Spirit And Kindness Will Roam This Earth Forever. Thank You For Beating The Odds And Making It Possible For Kids Everywhere. We Love You. You Can Now Rest. (9-30-1980)- (11- 28-2021)

[wamiandayne]

no because like. warning this is so long keeping most of it under the cut for all of our sakes anne rice would be shocked

becoming a priest was lestat's [first] escape. it is where he finally got the (positive) attention his mother (and father, and brothers) denied from him. its where he was taught to read and told for the first time that he was good. thats unbelievably powerful.

he had no power at home. he was the seventh son, the third living one. they were penniless and unloving and neglectful. lestat knew from a young age that he had no use, no meaning, no love. but then he goes somewhere that not only pays attention to him, tells him that he is worthwhile and actually nurtures him. the idea that someone (even god) loves him unconditionally just because he exists is like. thats outrageous. thats unheard of. not even his own mother loves him like that, if, to his 12 year old brain, at all.

this is even more delicious because [in canon] lestat never really believed in god; not even when he was at the monastery. lestat in general has a really complicated devastating relationship with god. just like extrapolating but i think he was kind of catholic but i dont think gabrielle or the marquis ever fostered that kind of relationship w god in any of their children, let alone lestat. to lestat god is a sort of ambigious Thing. a Concept with Weight and Eyes and Power. he believes in god, because how can you not, but it isnt really. Real. not to mention hes like. 10. But in the monastery hes taught love n especiallt Love Through God. after he loses that connection in the monastery to his. idk. support system where he had learned to connect religion with love and recognition in show he talks about returning to his family and having that religion beaten and starved out of him, and of course being utterly demolished by the fact that god doesnt save him. the dissonance lestat has with religion makes up a lot of his character in religion, like it does in anne rice's life and the overall complexity that comes w being a christian[-adjacent] when it comes to experiencing any sort of trauma. I am rambling. Where was i. So if we dont remove lestat from this environment. If the marquis simply forgot him and left him to rot in the hands of the church, lestat learns like. Godliness. Priestly-ness. Idk shit abt catholicism or 18th century monasteries bear with me. Lestat at heart is begging for attention. For Love. For Anything. all attention is good attention for him.

i think that even if he wasnt removed from this place, he wouldnt suddenly believe fully and truly in god. or at least in religion. i think he would try. i think he would devote himself fully and try, so, so hard to be what he is told god wants him to be, but theres just some kind of fundamental disconnect between him and the sort of all-consuming, totally unshakeable faith he Should have in The Bible. in God. The Whole Thing. his relationship with religion is so complex and nuanced that the 1700s wouldnt even be able to handle it. but lestat is still a performer at heart, even if he never ran off to join a troupe of actors in this . well. thought experiement. so he plays the part of the most loving beautiful sheep in the world. jesus himself would be in awe of lestats devotion. but in his heart, lestat knows its fake. so thats just like, a new level of religious . well. trauma i suppose. for him.

especially as hes wrestling with some latent homosexual tendencies i think he still meets nicki and they kiss and stuff n lestat accidentally ruins nickis life cause they get caught but no one would ever, ever think Lestat de Lioncourt would be up to Such Horrid Depravity so nicki like runs off to paris in shame (surprise tool that will help us later) and then i think there is some sort of stand in for magnus with a shitty predatorial priest or bishop or some shit and the metaphor of lestats turning is less metaphorical than we would all personally like it to be etc i could go on for a While but like. Later.

the picture we need 2 have of lestat is thus: a Surprisingly young priest, outwardly charming and disarming. he's humble; subservient, the way priests should be. (im presuming. subservient to god snd community. idk. ive never met a priest.) altogether not very intelligent or worldly, but with a fondness for those who can play the violin and an encyclopedic knowledge of scripture. much beloved and easily reduced to tears. a perfect shepherd for gods children.

internally though. a tormented young man, convinced there is something wrong with him and that if hell were real theres a cage with his name on it. someone who feels... abandoned, and misunderstood, and fake. someone with no control over his life and no one to turn to.

In walks the Louis of it all.

believe it or not there are still vampires. idk if i like it more that louis is on his european soul search... post-claudia? (who i cannot decide the place of in this au. i like a grown up claudia, a sister for louis and abandoned fledgling of their maker who has recently decided to hate and abandon him. or maybe shes dead, post killing their maker. or maybe shes still not yet born, and louis baby traps lestat in this one. (which would be insane btw. claudia awakening maternal instincts in lestat he didnt know existed, given how gabrielle treated him. louis turning lestats words on him- youre like a mother. youre like your mother.) Honestly i think lestat still baby traps louis. I talk like this is a story that will exist and not just a thought experiment for me and my best friend ben) or maybe lestat is sent overseas to new orleans or maybe louis has all that fucked up history with armand (who is in paris at this time) and hes just trying to escape for a minute in fuckin. auvergne. Idk. idc. louis and lestat meet and it is like a fucking car crash.

louis is, of course, catholic and tormented. louis stumbles into the church at 1 am when lestat is supposed to be cleaning or asleep but is jnstead staring at the moon smoking a cigarette or something or maybe lestat is praying and grappling with his own faith and is enraptured with this beautiful, bizarre, man who is asking for confession when lestat isnt even frocked (this is funny wording just take it) and then they get there and louis is like. bless me father for i have sinned. forgive me father because i am going to sin again. i have killed. i will kill again. quite possibly this beautiful young priest who frankly smells delicious and will haunt my every waking dream for months.

jokes. louis doesnt come on that strong. he just says hes done something terrible and he will do it again, and lestat is fascinated. the worst sins people ever want to confess to are- what? coveting thy neighbors wife? nothing awful. nothing so horrible as to not explain. nothing so delicious as this.

so obviously lestat falls in love instantly and wishes to forgive louis everything if only so they can have some wild passionate love affair or skmething. lestat wants to either dissect him or be dissected, frankly.

but louis Hates that shit. he wants torment. he wants shock and horror. he wants fear and to be feared and to have someone else hate him just as much as he hates himself. sadly! no lestat could ever hate a louis, especially not one so... repressed. shenanigans ensue. lestat begs to be turned. lestat is both claudia and madeline . lestat is daniel . lestat wants to be free. louis does not want to be responsible. etc.

theres more. theres so much more. i just cant get into it here. its too long

i know that he got pulled out of priest school at age 12 but like. what if lestat had been a priest. what if louis was a tormented vampire looking for compassion and a release from sin. what if..... no. i shant say

[wickedpact]

dear tumblr user crim wickedpact pls write the essay/dissertation about nicky being shakespeare's fair youth (if you have time, ofc!!)

Not To Imply Nicky Was Shakespeare’s Fair Youth But Ive Read The Fair Youth Sonnets & Nicky Was Definitely Shakespeare’s Fair Youth, an essay by me, tumblr user crim wickedpact

background knowledge: our man shakespeare wrote some 120 sonnets about a young man referred to as the Fair Youth during the mid 1590s; there has been some debate among shakespeare enthusiasts whether shakespeare’s interest in the Fair Youth was platonic or romantic (but like. they were definitely romantic). no one knows for sure who the Fair Youth was, but it was definitely nicky and my first and most important piece of evidence regarding this hypothesis is the ‘lmao babe do you remember that guy who had a crush on me?’/ ‘i try not to remember the guy who had a crush on you’ look joe and nicky exchange when Merrick brings up shakespeare during the movie. especially since gina confirmed in a tweet that joe and nicky canonly did know shakespeare

my second piece of evidence is that it just Works (except for a couple small facts like.. the Fair Youth was prolly closer to his 20s than his 30s. and the fact that shakespeare implies that the Fair Youth slept with his mistress at one point. but he doesnt know what hes talking about shhh we IGNORE)

long post under cut

A. The Description Matches

when describing the Fair Youth (who I’ll call the FY from now on), shakespeare says he has a ‘gold complexion’ and ‘beautiful eyes’ and compares him to a ‘summer’s day’. He says the FY has “A woman’s gentle heart" and “An eye more bright than [women’s are], (...) Gilding the object whereupon [they] gazeth”

As much as shakespeare’s perceptions of sexuality and gender are very........  late 1500′s (whoo boy sonnet #20 is a wild ride) ...... the description does match, and also:

  B. The Fair Youth Refused to Get Married

it’s never really said why one way or another (shakespeare assumes it’s because the FY is selfish) but the FY didn’t/wouldn’t take on a wife and have a kid, and this was something that was a real sticker for our man Willy S. because, as he says in his sonnets a million times: beauty doesn’t last forever, but having a child not only passes down the FY’s beauty, but also blesses the woman the FY would have a child with (im not saying shakespeare wanted to bear the FY’s children, but he definitely did)

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

(ie. If you don’t renew yourself/ have children, you deprive the world and deprive a woman from having your child, since what woman out there is so beautiful that she wouldn’t want to bear your child?)

Like.

1.) if nicky is the FY then so many of these poems center around the idea of nicky growing old sometime soon and that must have been pretty funny to Nicky and

2.)  the fact that shakespeare would have been So Desperate for nicky to find a wife must have been the opposite of funny to joe. considering the ease of his and nicky’s relationship and the fact that being gay in late 1500s england was probably not a walk in the park, it is very likely shakespeare wouldn’t have known they were in a committed relationship-- or at least not known how close they actually were. Thus:

  C. The Rival (aka. Joe)

shakespeare mentions having a poetic rival in regards to the FY in several sonnets. In sonnet #21 he talks about how he’s not like Those Other Writers who use grand metaphors to talk about their muses

So is it not with me as with that Muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,

(ie. I’m not like other poets who, when inspired by a ‘painted beauty’ use heaven and every other beautiful thing on the planet to make a grand comparison to their muse: he specifically lists the sun and moon as examples as well as other beautiful things)

He then goes on to say

And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

(ie. my love [the FY] is as beautiful as any other beautiful person, though I wouldn’t compare them to the stars/heavens (which is what he means by the 'gold candles’. those are stars.))

So shakespeare insults poets who compare their subjects to the sun, moon, and stars (amongst other things) and in the comics, Joe does literally exactly that

That man is the stars in my sky, and the sun that lights my days. That man is the moon when I'm lost in darkness, and warmth when I shiver in cold.

shakespeare also goes on to say in the same sonnet “Let them say more that like of hearsay well / I will not praise that purpose not to sell” which is to say ‘let people who like that kind of language use it, I wont because I don’t want anyone else to have the subject of my affections (the FY)’.

(which is a bit of a contradiction regarding his feelings abt the FY getting married, but these sonnets are full of contradictions. shakespeare was a confused dude; man spent the first 100 or so sonnets convinced the FY loved him back only for him to start wondering if the FY ever loved him near the end)

(not to mention Marriage For Love wasnt really.. much of a thing in Ye Olden Times but thats a different conversation. so shakespeare prolly didnt associate marriage with love/competition? anyways)

Shakesy-boo goes on to complain about this rival several times. In #79, he says

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give, And found it in thy cheek: he can afford No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.

(ie. everything ‘your poet’ (as the FY apparently favored this unnamed rival) says about you, he takes it from you in the first place. he talks about your virtue, but learned the word from watching your behavior. he calls you beautiful but only discovered beauty by looking at your face. every compliment he gives you he took from you in the first place)

[and, as a smaller example, he also bemoans the fact that people want to paint the FY in #67, saying, “Why should false painting imitate his cheek, / And steal dead seeming of his living hue?”. and yknow. Joe’s an artist.]

And then another example in #86

Was it the proud full sail of [the rival’s] great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

(ie. he’s talking about how he’s having difficulty writing abt the FY and is rhetorically asking if ‘the proud sail’ of the rival’s verses was the reason his ‘ripe thoughts’ were killed in their ‘womb’. He then asks (again rhetorically) if it was the rival’s ‘spirit’ (or creativity, maybe) ‘’’‘by spirits taught to write’’’’ that killed his own drive to write. none of the analyses I’ve read really explain what shakespeare means by ‘spirits taught to write’, other than maybe being a joke or reference to something we dont know, but... ‘taught by dead people to write in a way mortal people can’t’ very much sounds like a description of an immortal poet, eh?)

Which brings me to,

  D. Willy Boy Thinks There Are 500 Year Old Writings About the Fair Youth

shakespeare talks about people having written about the FY ‘500 years ago’ from the late 1500s in #59 which......................... would have been around 1100 AD. :thinking face:

Oh that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done, That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame;

(ie. Oh if I could look back 500 years and see how you were described in some old books so I could see/reference what people used to write about you)

Which again brings me to,

  E. I’m Not Saying shakespeare Stole From Joe, But:

1.) In #22, shakespeare says this,

For all that beauty that doth cover thee, Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me: 

(ie, your beauty is due to the ‘clothes’ my heart gives you-- probably means something like ‘you’re beautiful because i love you’. goes on to say his heart lives in the FY’s chest, and the FY’s heart lives in shakespeare’s chest)

so: shakespeare tells the FY he has shakespeare’s heart. in comparison, Joe calls nicky ‘my heart’ in the comics...... :thinking face x2:

2.) In #109, shakespeare tells the FY ‘thou art my all’,

For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

which rings similar to Joe’s ‘he’s all and he’s more’ as well as (from the comics) ‘he is my everything’

and just saying. joe looks pretty #done the mention of shakespeare.

  F. The last One

Despite shakespeare writing 30+ poems about the FY eventually growing old, the very last poem he writes about/for the FY says,

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein showest Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growest. 

(ie. you [the FY] have power over the ‘mirror’ (fickle glass) of time as well as time’s ‘harvesting’ ability (sickle hour) and as you grow older, you remain beautiful while your lovers [shakespeare] wither and grow old)

The transition from ‘get married and have a baby before you get old!!!!’ in #1-20 to talking about the FY’s presence in 500 y/o books in #59 to admitting the FY isn’t growing old in #126 kinda seems to imply shakespeare learning of/about nicky’s immortality at some point, and this last poem is him accepting it.

TLDR: not only does it make perfect sense if nicky was the Fair Youth from the FY sonnets, but it also makes perfect sense if joe was the Rival from the FY sonnets. its canon nothing will convince me otherwise

[aftgficrec]

Dragon/Magical/mythical AU pretty please 🥺

There are just so many aus with magic, mythical creatures and fantasy out there! We’ve put a small collection together here, and you can find more in our previous recs as well as under our fantasy tag (see below). The fantasy tag is under AUs. - S

Also see...

supernatural compilation here (see top of post for further recs)

fantasy aus (with dragons!) here

HTTYD/Dragon!Andrew aus here

new/fave fantasy fics here

fave fantasy fics here

Neil as a fantasy creature here

andreil shapeshifters/soulmates/omegaverse here

long fae/magic aus here

magic/urban fantasy aus here

Neil with wings and lots of magic here

werewolf!Andrew here

fairy tale aus here

staff recs may 21 - mermay here

Greek mythology aus here

‘Spun Like Gold’ here

‘On Dragon's Wings (Under the Blue)’ here

‘Imp’ here

Of Smoke & Bone by wishbonetea [Rated M, 23905 words, incomplete, last updated Sept 21]

In general, Neil Josten managed to keep his two lives in balance. On the one hand, he was a nineteen year old art student in Prague with a part-time job in a mostly-normal coffee shop. On the other, he, Allison, and Renee worked for an inhuman creature, running errands in exchange for wishes. For the most part, these two lives rarely intersect. But it's fair to say that the Foxes bring their own brand of trouble, and Neil's two lives soon start to collide.

tw: violence, tw: implied/referenced child abuse, tw: recreational drug use

little ghost by redskiesandsailboats [Rated G, 5224 words, complete, 2021]

Everything comes with a price.

He should have known.

All of them should have.

But that’s the thing about hope.

Sometimes, if you let it grow past a spark, it’s so bright that it’s blinding.

Or: the one in which there is a quest with dubious guidelines, a ghost with an aversion to names, and a hero who never asked for any of this, but he keeps his promises anyways.

tw: implied/referenced abuse, tw: implied/referenced murder

Our Liminal Souls by glowingbee [Rated E, 27352 words, incomplete, last updated July 21]

Neil Josten doesn't believe in Gods, ghosts, nor destiny. If there is anything he has come to believe from years of out running certain death is that, firstly, not even a perfect utopia can protect everyone and second that everyone dies alone. A born wizard with a need for adrenaline, Neil knows he can only protect himself by learning combat, languages, and magic by participating in academic tournaments that are intense physical, magical, and psychological tests that honor their lineages of magic and otherworldly-given powers.

A lapse in Neil's plans securing his passage to his next hideaway has him dumped onto the world-stage of collegiate magic tournaments after being contracted to a high-profile A1 tournament court shadowed by recent suspicious deaths and a secretive court. Neil runs the risk of his secrets finding him before he can even begin to make sense of his invisible ties to his new teammates' own pasts and deciphering strange dreams that haunt him of mother's last moments.

tw: violence, tw: implied/referenced child abuse, tw: implied/referenced torture, tw: blood

From The Ashes by tigerrlilyy [Not Rated, 4482 words, incomplete, last updated May 21]

After spending his entire life on the run, the death of Neil's mother throws him into a world where he's being hunted by dragons and a lot of people are wanting to see his blood spilled.

That is until he's whisked away to a special school for people just like him where he meets the beautiful asshole Andrew Minyard who seems to have a burning hatred for his existence the minute he steps foot in the school.

To top it all off? Andrew's a dragon. A dragon who wants him dead.

tw: violence, tw: minor character death, tw: blood, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon, tw: implied/referenced child abuse

Fang and Stake by darkbluebox [Rated T, 2658 words, complete, 2020]

For most hunters, it would have been a wet dream: his quarry beaten, bleeding, trapped and prone before him. He might as well have been holding a stake on a silver platter. If it had been any other vampire in the world, Andrew wouldn’t have hesitated to drive the splintering chunk of wood through his chest and be done with it.

Unfortunately, Neil wasn’t any other vampire.

tw: blood, tw: implied/referenced abuse

you hit me like a vision by paleromantic [Rated G, 2181 words, complete, 2019]

Andrew opened his mouth, closed it again. “Uh, who the fuck are you?”

The man blinked, and underneath him in the water Andrew swore that he saw something moving, a quick swish under the water every once in a while. He had auburn hair like red that had cooled in the pale spring sunshine to a duller brown, and when the sun caught it it turned to copper. “You can call me Neil if you’d like, I live around here.”

BITE by poetatertot [Rated M, 23338 words, incomplete, last updated Sept. 2019]

Nathaniel was terrified. A hulking mass, all bristling fur and slavering jaws, stood and stared back at him. It was greater than any man—greater than any raven-shifter he’d ever seen. It was massive.

“Fox,” he breathed.

tw: violence, tw: implied/referenced abuse

A Midsummer Night's Fib by NachtGraves [Rated G, 3620 words, complete, Andreil Week 2018]

Neil doesn’t know why he did it but Nicky wasn’t going to quit and Allison had her phone out with that plotting gleam in her eyes and Dan and Matt were looking at him in certain ways and he just blurt it out: “I’m going with Andrew.”

Ouroboros by ANEMONEXVI [Rated M, 34420 words, incomplete, last updated Nov 2018]

“I don’t have any desire to be part of a group of rebels who aid townspeople and give warmongering nations the metaphorical finger,” Neil stoked his words with distain, hoping to discourage the group into the short version of the conversation he knew they were trying to have.

...

With no time to grieve the violent death of his mother, Neil finds himself alone in an unforgiving land with a heavy target on his back. In his aimlessness he encounters a group of roguish crusaders, The Foxes. A team of misfits who attempt to work together to bring peace to nations or peoples in crisis. And they want to recruit Neil for his rumored illusory magic.

But Neil's magical lineage doesn't speak of subtlety and he can't afford to catch any unwanted attention.

A roughshod fantasy/magic/government intrigue/familial drama/torture/mental and physical healing/aliens/ saga

tw: violence, tw: implied/referenced child abuse, tw: cannibalism, tw: blood/gore

what light tastes like by knoxxed (badmatch) [Rated T, 6516 words, complete, Aftg Exchange 2017]

Los Angeles is Jeremy Knox’s frown of concern whenever Jean pushes himself to the point of strain, the delighted grin when Jean surprises him. It’s cat fur being one more reason to stop wearing black.

Los Angeles is Jean never once being asked to confirm or deny who or what he is.

Los Angeles takes some getting used to.

(urban fantasy AU)

A Natural History of Dragons JereJean AU by @rhododendronbeware [tumblr, 2020]

- Jean Moreau only ever wanted to study dragons but instead he gets married off to Riko Moriyama to pay off his family’s debt.

Art

Demon Neil by EstaVS on deviantart

winged neil by @mistykaru [tumblr, 2021]

demon andrew by @mistykaru [tumblr, 2021]